Now that we have struggled with a lot of things that are more difficult in German than in most other languages, we come to something the Germans managed to make easier. The past tenses in Roman languages and even in English are more complex than the German past tenses. Therefore you can relax a bit in the following chapter.

The simple past tense     simple past tense past continuous   example English He ate breakfast. He was eating breakfast   example German Er aß Frühstück. -------

Compound past tenses     present perfect present perfect continuous   example English He has eaten breakfast. He has been eating breakfast   example German Er hat Frühstück gegessen. -------     past perfect past perfect continuous   example English He had eaten breakfast. He had been eating breakfast.   example German Er hatte Frühstück gegessen. -------

As you can see in the tables above, there are only half of the tenses in German than in English.