Purpose

By the end of this lesson, you will be able to identify which verbs use “sein” instead of “haben” as their Perfekt auxiliary, directly paralleling French’s être/avoir distinction.

Lesson Explanation

A specific set of German verbs — mostly describing movement or a change of state — use sein (Part 1, Lesson 6) as their Perfekt auxiliary instead of haben, genuinely paralleling the same distinction in French passé composé:

ich bin gegangen     (I went)
sie ist gekommen      (she came)

Common sein verbs: gehen (to go), kommen (to come), fahren (to drive/travel), bleiben (to stay), sterben (to die).

A genuinely important, specific difference from French: unlike French être-verb participles, which agree in gender and number with the subject, German past participles used with sein do not change form based on the subject at all — ich bin gegangen and sie ist gegangen both use gegangen unchanged, genuinely simpler than the equivalent French rule.

Practice Questions