Lesson 56: Events, Parties, and Holidays in the Past
In this lesson, you’ll keep practicing the past tense with war and hatte. This time, you’ll use it to talk about events, parties, and holidays that already happened.
You are still not learning the whole past tense system. You are learning how to ask and answer very simple past-tense questions with the verbs sein and haben.
What You’ll Learn
- How to ask simple questions in the past
- How to answer with war / waren
- How to answer with hatte / hatten
- How to talk about parties, events, and holidays in the past
- How to describe how an event was
Talking About Events In The Past
Now you can say things like:
Die Party war schön.
The party was nice.
Das Fest war interessant.
The festival was interesting.
Der Urlaub war gut.
The vacation was good.
Wir hatten viel Spaß.
We had a lot of fun.
These are very useful A1 sentences because they help you talk about something that already happened without using too much grammar at once.
Useful Vocabulary
| German | English |
|---|---|
| Die Party | The party |
| Der Geburtstag | The birthday |
| Das Fest | The celebration/festival |
| Der Urlaub | The vacation/holiday |
| Die Ferien | The school holidays/vacation |
| Die Einladung | The invitation |
| Der Kuchen | The cake |
| Die Musik | The music |
| Die Freunde | The friends |
| Das Geschenk | The gift |
| Der Spaß | The fun |
These words work well with war and hatte.
Simple Questions In The Past
A very useful question word here is:
Wie … ?
How … ?
Now you can ask:
Wie war die Party?
How was the party?
Wie war das Fest?
How was the festival?
Wie war der Urlaub?
How was the vacation?
This is one of the easiest and most useful past-tense question types.
Asking Where Something Was
You can also ask:
Wo war die Party?
Where was the party?
Wo war das Fest?
Where was the festival?
Wo war der Urlaub?
Where was the vacation?
Possible answers:
Die Party war bei Anna.
The party was at Anna’s place.
Das Fest war in der Stadt.
The festival was in town.
Der Urlaub war in Berlin.
The vacation was in Berlin.
Asking Who Was There
A very useful question is:
Wer war da?
Who was there?
Answers can stay simple:
Meine Freunde waren da.
My friends were there.
Anna war da.
Anna was there.
Meine Familie war da.
My family was there.
Asking If Something Was Good
You can ask very simple yes/no questions in the past:
War die Party gut?
Was the party good?
War das Wetter schön?
Was the weather nice?
War der Urlaub interessant?
Was the vacation interesting?
Hattet ihr Spaß?
Did you have fun?
Answers:
Ja, die Party war gut.
Yes, the party was good.
Ja, wir hatten Spaß.
Yes, we had fun.
A Small Word Order Reminder
Past-tense questions with war and hatte work like other yes/no questions.
The verb comes first:
War die Party gut? (Was the party good?)
Hattet ihr Spaß? (Did you have fun?)
With question words, the question word comes first and the verb comes second:
Wie war die Party? (How was the party?)
Wo war das Fest? (Where was the festival?)
Wer war da? (Who was there?)
This should already feel familiar from the question lessons you studied earlier.
Useful Example Sentences
Die Party war toll.
The party was great.
Das Fest war schön.
The festival was nice.
Der Urlaub war super.
The vacation was great.
Meine Freunde waren da.
My friends were there.
Ich hatte viel Spaß.
I had a lot of fun.
