Start with everyday past accounts
New to German past forms? Begin with Perfekt, war and hatte before expanding written narration here.
Regular verbs use a -te- pattern
Compare machen → machte and warten → wartete. Person endings still matter: ich machte, du machtest, wir machten, ihr machtet.
Wir warteten bis neun.
We waited until nine.
Learn strong past forms with the verb
Do not add the regular ending to every verb. Learn entries such as gehen → ging, sehen → sah and finden → fand. First and third singular share their form: ich ging, sie ging.
Mara sah ein Licht.
Mara saw a light.
Time expressions do not remove verb-second order
A word such as dann can fill the first sentence position. The finite verb follows, then the subject. The past tense does not introduce a new main-clause word-order rule.
Dann öffnete Mara das Fenster.
Then Mara opened the window.
Separable prefixes still separate
A finite separable verb can form a bracket in the past too: ankommen → kam ... an. Keep the prefix while changing the verb stem.
Der Zug kam spät an.
The train arrived late.
Written versus spoken is a tendency
Präteritum is frequent in written stories, while Perfekt is common in conversation. But neither belongs exclusively to one medium. Forms of sein, haben and modal verbs often occur in spoken past accounts; regional preferences also differ.
Ich war müde und hatte keine Zeit.
I was tired and had no time.
Practise this pattern
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References
Original teaching prose and examples, informed by these grammar references. A2 placement is an editorial curriculum choice, not a CEFR certification.