Plusquamperfekt
das Plusquamperfekt
The Plusquamperfekt is the German past perfect: it describes an action that was already finished before another past event, built with hatte or war + Partizip II.
“Nachdem ich gegessen hatte, ging ich” — first eating, then leaving. English has the same tense (“I had eaten”), so the idea is nothing new; what is new is that German makes you use it after nachdem.
Right now: one word changes in a sentence you already know
If you can build the Perfekt, you will finish this page in ten minutes: you just move the auxiliary verb into the past, and everything else stays the same.
ShortcutTake your Perfekt sentence and change habe → hatte · bin → war. Do not touch the Partizip II. That is the Plusquamperfekt.
| Tense | Sentence | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Perfekt | Ich habe gegessen. | I have eaten. / I ate. |
| Plusquamperfekt | Ich hatte gegessen. | I had eaten. |
| Perfekt | Ich bin gegangen. | I have gone. / I went. |
| Plusquamperfekt | Ich war gegangen. | I had gone. |
The answer to haben or sein? is exactly the same as in the Perfekt. You are not memorising a new list: verbs that take sein still take war.
You already do this in English — with the same logic
English separates this tense exactly the way German does, and you use it all the time: I had come · I had eaten · she had left · I had forgotten. The German version maps one to one — on this topic you have an advantage over learners whose own language has no such tense.
| English | German | Order |
|---|---|---|
| I had eaten | Ich hatte gegessen. | happened first |
| then I left | Dann ging ich los. | happened second |
| The train had left | Der Zug war abgefahren. | happened first |
| when I got to the station | als ich am Bahnhof ankam. | happened second |
Whatever job had + past participle does in English, hatte/war + Partizip II does in German. Building the sentence in English and translating it works here — a rare thing.
One difference: in English you can often get away with “After I ate, I left” and nobody blinks. In German, after nachdem this tense is required — leave it out and the sentence is wrong.
Where it really lives: the nachdem clause
The Plusquamperfekt rarely stands alone. Almost every time it shows up in a sentence that puts two events in order, and the conjunction of that sentence is nachdem.
| nachdem clause | Main clause | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Plusquamperfekt | Präteritum | Nachdem ich gegessen hatte, ging ich los. |
| Perfekt | Präsens | Nachdem ich gegessen habe, gehe ich los. |
The rule in one line: the nachdem clause sits one step behind the main clause. If the main clause is in the past, the subordinate clause drops to “the past of the past”; if the main clause is in the present, the subordinate clause drops to the past.
Nachdem ich gegessen habe, ging ich los.
The two tenses do not match.
Nachdem ich gegessen hatte, ging ich los.
After I had eaten, I left.
With a separable verb the Partizip II still splits in the middle: abfahren → abgefahren · ankommen → angekommen · einkaufen → eingekauft. That part lives on the Perfekt page.
Two places where people go wrong
Using the Plusquamperfekt in a bevor clause
nachdem demands the tense shift, bevor does not. Once learners know the rule they start applying it to every time conjunction — but in a bevor clause both sides stay in the same tense.
Bevor ich gegessen hatte, ging ich los.
bevor does not shift the tense.
Bevor ich ging, aß ich etwas.
Before I left, I ate something.
The logic is simple: bevor already says “before”, so the conjunction shows the order. nachdem says “after” and has to show which event came first through the tense.
Picking the wrong auxiliary
Verbs that take sein in the Perfekt take war here. Learners memorise hatte and write it everywhere.
Der Zug hatte abgefahren.
abfahren is a motion verb — it takes sein.
Der Zug war abgefahren.
The train had left.
A reminder: verbs of movement from A to B (gehen · kommen · fahren · fliegen · abfahren · ankommen) and verbs of change of state (aufstehen · einschlafen · sterben · werden) take sein. Plus three exceptions: sein · bleiben · passieren.
The part nobody tells you: this tense is almost absent in speech
Textbooks present the Plusquamperfekt as one of six tenses, as if people used it constantly in daily life. They do not. In spoken German you will hear it almost only in nachdem sentences; otherwise Germans put two events in order by saying zuerst … dann.
Ich hatte gegessen und dann war ich gegangen.
Grammatically fine, but nobody talks like that.
Ich habe zuerst gegessen und bin dann gegangen.
This is everyday German.
The practical consequence: you are learning this topic for writing and reading, not for speaking. You will meet it in the B1 written exam and in newspaper and novel texts; you do not need to chase it in the oral exam.
The second thing nobody mentions: in southern Germany and Austria, everyday speech has a “double Perfekt” — Ich hab gegessen gehabt. Do not be surprised when you hear it; do not write it — in an exam it counts as a mistake.
What you just learned
Building “He had gone”: Er _____ gegangen.
Show the answer
war — Verbs of motion (gehen) take the auxiliary war in the Plusquamperfekt.
Nachdem ich gegessen ___, ging ich los.
Show the answer
hatte. The main clause is in the Präteritum (ging), so the nachdem clause drops one step back — into the Plusquamperfekt.
Which is the German for “I had eaten”?
Show the answer
Ich hatte gegessen. English “had + past participle” is the direct counterpart of the Plusquamperfekt. habe gegessen = have eaten / ate, aß = ate (written language).
What to do this week
This topic sticks when you put two events in order. Five minutes a day, one exercise:
- Pick two events from yesterday and write them in order: “I ate.” → “I left.”
- Turn the earlier one into the Plusquamperfekt: Ich hatte gegessen.
- Join the two with nachdem: Nachdem ich gegessen hatte, ging ich los.
- Flip the same pair with bevor — and drop the Plusquamperfekt: Bevor ich losging, aß ich etwas.
- Once a week, drill the sein verbs: war angekommen · war eingeschlafen · war abgefahren.
Next up is the Passiv: a sentence that loses its subject — the structure formal German uses most.
Build the sentence yourself
Tap the words and put them in order. This is the hardest part of German — and there are no options to pick from, you build it.
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tap the words
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tap the words
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tap the words
Know this before the test
The core of the topic in three lines, then the mistakes people make most often.
- Push your Perfekt sentence back one step
Take a Perfekt sentence you already know and move only the auxiliary verb into the past. Do not touch the Partizip II; that is all the Plusquamperfekt is.
Ich habe gegessen → Ich hatte gegessen.
- The auxiliary is the same as in the Perfekt
You are not memorising a new list: a verb that takes sein in the Perfekt takes war here, and a verb that takes haben takes hatte.
Der Zug ist abgefahren → Der Zug war abgefahren.
- nachdem pushes back one step
The subordinate clause always sits one step behind the main clause. If the main clause is in the Präteritum, the subordinate clause is Plusquamperfekt; if the main clause is in the present, the subordinate clause stays in the Perfekt.
Nachdem ich gegessen hatte, ging ich los.
- bevor needs no shift
Because the conjunction itself shows the order, both sides of a bevor clause stay in the same tense. Do not apply the rule to every conjunction.
Bevor ich losging, aß ich etwas.
- In speech, this tense is almost absent
In everyday German two events are put in order with zuerst … dann. You will mostly see the Plusquamperfekt in nachdem clauses and in written German.
Ich habe zuerst gegessen und bin dann gegangen.
Bevor ich gegessen hatte, ging ich los.
Bevor ich losging, aß ich etwas.
Only nachdem asks for the shift. bevor already shows the order itself, so both sides stay in the same tense.
Der Zug hatte abgefahren.
Der Zug war abgefahren.
abfahren is a motion verb. A verb that takes ist in the Perfekt takes war here; hatte does not go everywhere.
Nachdem ich gegessen habe, ging ich los.
Nachdem ich gegessen hatte, ging ich los.
The two tenses do not match. Because the main clause is in the Präteritum, the subordinate clause drops one step back, into the Plusquamperfekt.
Ich hab gegessen gehabt.
Ich hatte gegessen.
The “double Perfekt” is heard in everyday speech in southern Germany and Austria; it has no place in written German and counts as a mistake in an exam.
Ich hatte gegessen und dann war ich gegangen.
Ich habe zuerst gegessen und bin dann gegangen.
The grammar of this sentence is correct — the problem is usage. In a plain sequence, if you throw both events into “the past of the past”, there is no anchor moment left to look back from; Germans stay in the Perfekt here.
Test yourself
Tap an answer — we will look at why together.
Nachdem ich gegessen , ging ich los.
After I had eaten, I left.
Der Zug schon abgefahren.
The train had already left.
Which is the German for “I had eaten”?
Which one is wrong?
Nachdem er angekommen , rief er mich an.
After he had arrived, he called me.
Nachdem ich die Hausaufgaben gemacht , gehe ich ins Kino.
After I have done my homework, I am going to the cinema.
Practice done — –
To finish the topic, take the full test: score 60% and it is marked as done on your level path.
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Plusquamperfekt worksheet
This whole page — tables, traps, examples — as one PDF. Download it, print it, run through it before the exam.
Related topics
Perfekt
haben or sein?
The spoken past: choosing haben or sein, and building Partizip II.
Präteritum
war · hatte · konnte · musste
The Präteritum is the German simple past, used mostly in writing and with a handful of very common verbs: war, hatte, konnte, musste.
Time conjunctions
als · wenn · wann
Time conjunctions say when something happens: als, wenn and wann all mean “when”, but each one is used differently.