English Tenses Practice for German Speakers: 60 Exercises with Answers

1How to work through these 60 exercises

This page does not explain the English tense system again. It makes you use it. Sixty sentences, each with an answer and a one-line reason, and all sixty aimed at exactly the places where German and English part ways.

If you are missing the big picture — all twelve tenses with their form, signal words and an example — read our English tenses overview first. This page assumes you have already seen the forms and asks only one question: which one belongs in this sentence, and why?

Write your answers on paper or in a note before you scroll on. "Knowing" something in your head is not the same as writing the form down.

Do a whole group, then read the answers. Do not check sentence by sentence — otherwise you are correcting yourself instead of deciding.

Read the reason for every mistake out loud. The error is almost never in the form; it is in the question you did not ask yourself first.

Put every sentence you got wrong on a separate list and copy it out correctly. That list is your real study material.

Come back three days later and redo only the group where you made the most mistakes.

Sixty exercises in one evening teach less than six evenings of ten. The groups are cut on purpose so that one group is one sitting.

2Why these six contrasts, and what German has to do with them

German speakers do not make random tense mistakes in English. They make the same six, and each has a clear cause: at that point German does not draw a distinction that English forces on you — or the other way round.

German has only one present tense. "Ich arbeite" means both "I work" and "I am working". The progressive with "am" ("Ich bin am Arbeiten") is regional and colloquial; the Leibniz Institute for the German Language describes it as a form that has only gradually made its way into grammars. English, by contrast, makes you choose in every single sentence.

The German Perfekt happily takes a finished time expression; the English Present Perfect does not. "Ich habe ihn gestern gesehen" is perfectly good German — in speech it is even the normal past form, while the Präteritum is mostly written and has almost disappeared in the south. That is exactly why nearly every German speaker writes "I have seen him yesterday" at some point.

German "seit" takes the present tense: "Ich wohne seit 2020 hier." English changes the tense instead ("I have lived here since 2020") and also splits "seit" into two words: "since" for the starting point, "for" for the length of time.

German has a pluperfect, but everyday speech often leaves it out because "dann", "danach" and "vorher" already sort out the order. English demands the Past Perfect in places where German gets by with an adverb.

For the future, German mostly uses the present tense. The Leibniz Institute for the German Language puts it this way: contrary to what the name suggests, German usually uses the present, not the future tense, when talking about the future. English has three competing future forms, and "I call you tomorrow" is none of them.

In a German conditional, the "würde" form can appear in the wenn-clause too — "wenn ich mehr Zeit haben würde" is completely normal in speech, even though usage guides prefer "hätte". In English, "If I would have" is simply wrong, and it is the mistake that costs the most marks in exams.

The six groups below follow this list exactly. Each one starts with the difference in two sentences, then come the exercises, then the answers with reasons.

You are not practising twelve tenses here. You are practising six decisions — and each one is a place where your German whispers the wrong answer.

3Present Simple or Present Continuous — exercises 1 to 10

German has one present tense; English has two. "Ich arbeite bei einer Spedition" and "Ich arbeite gerade" have the same structure in German, but in English they are "I work for a freight company" and "I am working right now". So the question is never "how do I say arbeiten?" but: is this a rule, or a snapshot of this moment?

Present Simple is for habits, facts, timetables and anything that holds long term. Present Continuous is for what is going on right now, for temporary situations and — together with "always" — for irritation. Stative verbs stay out of it: know, want, believe, understand, belong and own do not describe a process, so they take no -ing form.

Exercises 1 to 10: put the verb into the correct present form.

1. Right now she ____ (talk) to a client, so she cannot take your call.

2. Our office ____ (open) at eight every morning.

3. Look — it ____ (rain) again.

4. Water ____ (boil) at 100 degrees Celsius.

5. I ____ (not understand) this clause in the contract.

6. This month I ____ (work) at the Vancouver branch, but normally I am in Toronto.

7. He ____ (always / forget) his badge. (irritation at a habit)

8. I ____ (know) the answer.

9. She ____ (have) lunch at her desk at the moment.

10. My train ____ (leave) at 6:40 every evening.

Answers 1 to 10

1. is talking — "right now" calls for the continuous; German uses exactly the same present here as in sentence 2.

2. opens — "every morning" makes it a habit, so Present Simple.

3. is raining — It is happening at this very moment.

4. boils — A general truth, not something in progress.

5. do not understand — "understand" is a stative verb and takes no -ing form.

6. am working — A temporary exception to the routine, not the routine itself.

7. is always forgetting — "always" plus the continuous expresses irritation at a habit, not the neutral habit itself.

8. know — Stative verb; "I am knowing" does not exist.

9. is having — Here "have" means "eat", so it is an action and can take -ing.

10. leaves — Timetables and fixed times take Present Simple, even when they point to the future.

The fastest test: can you add "gerade" to the German sentence without it sounding odd? If so, English almost always needs the -ing form.

4Present Perfect or Past Simple — exercises 11 to 22

This is the big one. In spoken German the Perfekt is the normal past tense, and it combines with a finished time expression without any problem: "Ich habe ihn gestern gesehen." Translate that word for word and you get "I have seen him yesterday" — which is wrong. English does not allow the Present Perfect with finished time.

The deciding question is not "when did it happen?" but: is the period in which it happened already over? "Yesterday", "last Monday", "in 2019" and "two weeks ago" are over — Past Simple. "Today", "this year", "since March", "ever", "yet", "already" and "so far" are still open or reach up to now — Present Perfect.

Exercises 11 to 22: Present Perfect or Past Simple?

11. I ____ (see) him yesterday.

12. I ____ (already / send) the invoice, so you can pay it now.

13. She ____ (move) to Calgary in 2019.

14. ____ you ever ____ (be) to Vancouver?

15. We ____ (not finish) the report yet.

16. When ____ you ____ (start) this job?

17. He ____ (lose) his keys, so he cannot get into the flat.

18. Last Monday the client ____ (call) three times.

19. I ____ (live) in this city since March.

20. My grandfather ____ (work) as a carpenter for forty years. (the grandfather has died)

21. The price of coffee ____ (rise) twice this year. (the year is not over yet)

22. They ____ (sign) the contract two weeks ago.

Answers 11 to 22

11. saw — "yesterday" is finished time. German Perfekt allows it ("Ich habe ihn gestern gesehen"); the English Present Perfect does not.

12. have already sent — No time is given; what matters is the result that holds now.

13. moved — "in 2019" is a finished point in time.

14. Have ... been — Life experience with no time reference; "ever" is the signal word.

15. have not finished — "yet" means: not up to now, and the period is still open.

16. did ... start — "When" asks for a point in time, and a point in time demands Past Simple.

17. has lost — The result is visible now: he is stuck outside the door.

18. called — "last Monday" is finished.

19. have lived — "since March" reaches up to now. German stays in the present here: "Ich wohne seit März in dieser Stadt."

20. worked — The period is over, because the grandfather is no longer alive.

21. has risen — "this year" is still running, so the period is open.

22. signed — "ago" always goes with Past Simple.

As soon as the sentence contains a word that names a finished period, the Present Perfect is ruled out — however recent the event. "I have seen him five minutes ago" is just as wrong as with "yesterday".

5Present Perfect, Present Perfect Continuous and since/for — exercises 23 to 32

German "seit" causes two problems at once here. First, it takes the present tense: "Ich warte seit Dienstag" — in English, "I have been waiting since Tuesday". Second, one German word covers what English splits in two: "since" for a starting point (since Tuesday, since 2014, since breakfast) and "for" for a length of time (for three years, for six months, for an hour).

On top of that comes the choice between the two perfect forms. The Present Perfect stresses a result or a number: "She has written six emails." The Present Perfect Continuous stresses that the activity is still going on, or has just stopped and left a trace: "She has been writing emails all morning." Stative verbs stay in the simple form here too.

Exercises 23 to 32: fill in the verb form, and where there is a second gap, choose since or for as well.

23. I ____ (wait) for an answer since Tuesday.

24. She ____ (write) six emails this morning.

25. We ____ (know) each other ____ 2014.

26. He ____ (work) here ____ three years.

27. Your shoes are soaked — ____ you ____ (run)?

28. I ____ (read) that report three times.

29. They ____ (live) in Montreal ____ six months now.

30. How long ____ you ____ (study) English?

31. She ____ (not eat) anything ____ breakfast.

32. I ____ (try) to reach you all morning.

Answers 23 to 32

23. have been waiting — An activity that started on Tuesday and is still going on.

24. has written — The number six counts a result, not a duration.

25. have known ... since — "know" is a stative verb, and "2014" is a starting point, so "since".

26. has worked / has been working ... for — "three years" is a length of time, so "for". With "work" both forms are correct; the continuous stresses that it is ongoing.

27. have you been running — The soaked shoes are the visible trace of the activity.

28. have read — "three times" counts completed readings.

29. have been living ... for — "six months" is a length of time, so "for", and "now" says it is still going on.

30. have you been studying — "How long" asks about the duration of an activity that is still in progress.

31. has not eaten ... since — "breakfast" is a starting point, so "since"; in the negative there is no continuous here.

32. have been trying — "all morning" plus repeated attempts that have not worked yet.

A rule of thumb for since and for: if you can replace German "seit" with "from that point on", it is "since". If "for a stretch of" fits, it is "for".

6Past Simple or Past Perfect — exercises 33 to 42

German has a pluperfect, but everyday speech often saves itself the trouble, because "vorher", "schon" and "danach" already make the order clear: people say "Als wir ankamen, hatte die Sitzung schon angefangen", but also "fing schon an". English is stricter at this point.

The rule is simple: when two events are in the past and you want to mark the order, the earlier one goes into the Past Perfect (had + past participle) and the later one into the Past Simple. When the events are simply told one after another, everything stays in the Past Simple — a Past Perfect that marks no earlier event is a mistake, not a stylistic choice.

Exercises 33 to 42: Past Simple or Past Perfect?

33. When we arrived, the meeting ____ (already / begin).

34. I did not recognise him because he ____ (shave) off his beard.

35. After she ____ (send) the file, she went home.

36. He ____ (move) to Toronto in 2021 and bought a flat a year later.

37. By the time the doctor arrived, the patient ____ (stop) breathing.

38. Yesterday I ____ (finish) work at six and went straight home.

39. She told me she ____ (never / fly) before.

40. The street was wet because it ____ (rain) during the night.

41. We ____ (eat) dinner and then watched a film.

42. As soon as the train ____ (leave), I realised my bag was still on the platform.

Answers 33 to 42

33. had already begun — Of two past events, the earlier one goes into the Past Perfect.

34. had shaved — The shaving happened before the failure to recognise him.

35. had sent — "After" already makes the order clear: first send, then leave.

36. moved — Only one point in the past, so there is no earlier event to mark.

37. had stopped — "By the time" requires the event to have been completed before.

38. finished — A simple sequence on the same time level; a Past Perfect here would be wrong.

39. had never flown — The experience lies before the moment being narrated, which is itself in the past.

40. had rained — The rain came first; the wet street is the result.

41. ate — "and then" already orders the events; English does not need a Past Perfect here.

42. had left — The train had already gone by the time the realisation came.

Signal words that almost always bring a Past Perfect with them: by the time, before, after, as soon as, already, never ... before. If none of them is there, the Past Simple is usually enough.

7will, going to or Present Continuous — exercises 43 to 52

For the future, German uses the plain present in most cases: "Ich rufe dich morgen an", "Wir treffen uns am Freitag", "Mein Flug landet um 7:15". The future with "werden" is the exception, not the rule. English has three forms that are not interchangeable — and the bare present is allowed only for timetables.

The division of labour: "will" for spontaneous decisions, promises and pure predictions. "going to" for intentions already settled before the conversation, and for predictions based on visible evidence. Present Continuous for fixed arrangements with a time and a place. Present Simple only for flight and train timetables and fixed schedules.

Exercises 43 to 52: choose the right future form. In the last exercise, correct the sentence.

43. I ____ (see) the dentist at four tomorrow — the appointment is booked.

44. Look at those clouds — it ____ (rain).

45. The phone is ringing. — Do not get up, I ____ (answer) it.

46. I have decided: I ____ (learn) Spanish next year.

47. My flight ____ (land) at 7:15 on Sunday.

48. In 2050 most cars ____ (be) electric, I think.

49. Do not worry — I ____ (not tell) anyone.

50. We ____ (have) dinner with the Bakers on Friday; they invited us last week.

51. I have bought the paint. I ____ (repaint) the kitchen this weekend.

52. "I call you tomorrow." (correct the sentence)

Answers 43 to 52

43. am seeing — A fixed appointment in the calendar takes Present Continuous.

44. is going to rain — There is visible evidence right now, so "going to".

45. will answer — The decision is made at the moment of speaking, so "will".

46. am going to learn — An intention formed before the conversation, so "going to".

47. lands — Flight and train timetables take Present Simple.

48. will be — A prediction without evidence, just an opinion: "will".

49. will not tell — A promise made at the moment of speaking.

50. are having — An arrangement that has already been made.

51. am going to repaint — The paint already bought shows the plan was in place beforehand.

52. I will call you tomorrow. — German can say "Ich rufe dich morgen an" in the present. English needs "will" or "am going to" here.

If the appointment is already in your calendar, use the Present Continuous. If you have just decided, use "will". If you decided the day before yesterday, use "going to".

8If-clauses and the "würde" mistake — exercises 53 to 60

In German, the "würde" form can appear in both halves of a conditional sentence. "Wenn ich mehr Zeit hätte, würde ich mehr lesen" is the careful version, but "wenn ich mehr Zeit haben würde" is heard all the time, and usage guides note that the würde construction keeps spreading. That exact habit migrates into English — where "If I would have more time" is simply wrong.

The four patterns you need: Zero Conditional (if + Present, Present) for things that are always true. First Conditional (if + Present, will + base form) for real conditions. Second Conditional (if + Past Simple, would + base form) for unlikely ones. Third Conditional (if + Past Perfect, would have + past participle) for what can no longer be changed. In none of them does "will" or "would" follow "if".

The same mistake turns up after "when", "as soon as", "before" and "until": German says "Wenn du ankommst" and means the future, English says "When you arrive" and does not allow "will".

Exercises 53 to 60: fill in the correct form — for the sentences in quotation marks, correct them.

53. If I ____ (have) more time, I would read more.

54. If it rains tomorrow, we ____ (cancel) the barbecue.

55. If I ____ (be) you, I would take the job.

56. "If I would have known, I would have called you." (correct the sentence)

57. If she ____ (study) harder, she would have passed the exam.

58. Water freezes if the temperature ____ (fall) below zero.

59. "When you will arrive, call me." (correct the sentence)

60. If we ____ (leave) now, we would still catch the train.

Answers 53 to 60

53. had — Second Conditional: if + Past Simple, would + base form.

54. will cancel — First Conditional: a real condition, so if + Present Simple, will + base form.

55. were — After "If I", "were" is the fixed form of the Second Conditional.

56. If I had known, I would have called you. — "would" never goes in the if-clause. Colloquial German allows the "würde" form there; English does not.

57. had studied — Third Conditional: if + Past Perfect, would have + past participle.

58. falls — Zero Conditional for something that is always true: if + Present, Present.

59. When you arrive, call me. — After "when", "if", "as soon as" and "until", English never uses "will".

60. left — Second Conditional: the condition is unlikely, so Past Simple in the if-clause.

A rule to take into the exam: no "will" after "if", no "would" after "if". The only exception is the polite request — "If you would kindly sign here" — and you will never meet it in a grammar exercise.

9Scoring: what your mistakes say about your English

Count your mistakes per group, not in total. The total only tells you how your evening went; the spread tells you what to practise next.

Mistakes mostly in 1 to 10: you are translating the German present one to one. For a week, check every English sentence you say for whether "gerade" would fit it.

Mistakes mostly in 11 to 22: the classic case. Your spoken German uses the Perfekt for everything, and you carry it over. Drill the signal words only, not the forms — you already know the forms.

Mistakes mostly in 23 to 32: your problem is "seit", not the Present Perfect. Write twenty sentences of your own with since and twenty with for before you practise anything else.

Mistakes mostly in 33 to 42: you either never use the Past Perfect or use it too often. Both come from looking at the form instead of at the order of events.

Mistakes mostly in 43 to 52: you think about the future in the German present. This is the mistake that stands out fastest in conversation, because it can come up in every other sentence.

Mistakes mostly in 53 to 60: a straight transfer from colloquial German. It can be fixed in a week, because there is only one rule to remember.

Mistakes spread evenly, ten at most in total: your tenses are in place. The next step is not another grammar book but real English in quantity — see the last two sections.

More than twenty mistakes in total does not mean you do not know the tenses. It means you learned them one at a time and never against each other.

10How to practise a tense instead of ticking a box

Gap-fills test whether you recognise a rule. They do not test whether you use the form when nobody points you to it. The way from the first skill to the second runs through sentences of your own and through real English.

Step 1: take every sentence you got wrong and copy it out correctly three times — by hand, not on a keyboard.

Step 2: for every sentence you got wrong, write one of your own about your life. "I have worked in this team since January" sticks; a textbook sentence does not.

Step 3: say both sentences out loud. Tenses are spoken habits, and "I've been" has to roll off your tongue before it shows up in a conversation.

Step 4: within a week, find the same structure in real English — in a podcast, a news programme, a video. That second meeting is what turns a rule into a feel.

Step 5: review after three days, after a week, after a month. Only spaced repetition moves a form into long-term memory.

Ten sentences of your own, said out loud, do more than a hundred more gaps. The test for a tense is not whether you recognise it, but whether it slips out without you thinking.

11Practising tenses in real English with FlexiLingo

The last step no longer happens in an exercise. In real English the tenses switch within a single paragraph: Past Simple for the story, Present Perfect for what follows from it, Present Continuous for what is going on right now. That switching has to be heard, not learned.

Synced subtitles on podcasts and videos

You see every sentence as it is spoken. "I've been working on it" jumps out in the text but not when you only listen — and these are exactly the forms people miss for years.

Save sentences together with their tense

When you meet a sentence that shows one of the six decisions in this article, you save it with its full context — sentence, audio, timestamp. Your own collection of examples grows out of material you have actually heard.

Difficulty by CEFR level

Content is graded from A1 to C2. At A2 you mostly meet Present and Past Simple, at B1 and B2 the Present Perfect and Past Continuous join in, at C1 the future perfect forms — your listening material grows with your level.

Spaced-repetition review

Saved sentences come back at the right interval. Instead of reading a rule three times, you meet the same structure three times over three weeks — and that is the difference between recognising and being able to use.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do all the exercises really come with answers?

Yes. All 60 exercises have an answer, and every answer comes with a one-line reason — not just the correct form, but why the other form does not work here. The answers sit directly under each group, so you can finish a whole group before you look.

Why is "I have seen him yesterday" wrong when "Ich habe ihn gestern gesehen" is correct?

Because the German Perfekt and the English Present Perfect are built the same way but do different jobs. In spoken German the Perfekt is the normal past tense and accepts any time expression. The English Present Perfect connects the past with the present, so it cannot go with a finished period. As soon as "yesterday", "last week", "in 2019" or "two hours ago" is in the sentence, you need the Past Simple: "I saw him yesterday."

When do I use since and when for?

"since" goes before a starting point: since Monday, since 2014, since breakfast, since I moved here. "for" goes before a length of time: for two days, for three years, for ten minutes. The German reason for the mix-up is that "seit" covers both — "seit 2014" and "seit drei Jahren" look the same in German. And because German stays in the present with "seit", people often forget to change the tense in English: it is "I have lived here since 2020", not "I live here since 2020".

Can "would" go in the if-clause?

Not in standard English. "If I would have more time" and "If I would have known" are mistakes; the correct forms are "If I had more time" and "If I had known". The only exception is the polite request ("If you would follow me, please"), and that does not come up in exercises. The mistake is so common because in colloquial German "wenn ich mehr Zeit haben würde" passes without a second thought.

I am short on time — which group should I practise first?

Group 2, Present Perfect versus Past Simple, and then group 5, the future forms. These two mistakes stand out fastest in conversation and in any exam, because they can come up in almost every other sentence. The stative verbs in group 1 and the if-clauses in group 6 are quicker to fix, because each comes down to a single rule to remember.