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Help with some German

Is this correct:
Er hatte lange gegründet, obwohl ich studiere hier seit funf Jahren.

And can you use the Imperfect and Past Perfect next to each other.
eg. Ich spielte jeden Tag Klavier. Ich hatte es gemocht.
Reply 1
Is this correct:
Er hatte lange gegründet, obwohl ich studiere hier seit funf Jahren.


I'm not sure what you're trying to say in the first clause - perhaps you could explain

The second clause just needs to be slightly rearranged, as "obwohl" sends the verb to the end - , obwohl ich hier seit funf Jahren studiere.

And can you use the Imperfect and Past Perfect next to each other.
eg. Ich spielte jeden Tag Klavier. Ich hatte es gemocht.


I wouldn't use the past perfect ("Plusquamperfekt" in German) here as it denotes a past tense before (in terms of time) the imperfect and present perfect tenses. For example your example sentence would translate as "I played the piano every day. I had liked it" - it would be better to use the imperfect again (Ich mochte es = I liked it)

You could use the past perfect if the sentence were something like "Before I played the piano every day, I had liked it" - to show two different time periods in the past

I hope that makes sense
(edited 10 years ago)
Reply 2
Original post by ispyjonnytriff
I'm not sure what you're trying to say in the first clause - perhaps you could explain

It had been founded a long time ago, however I have been studying here for 5 years.
Original post by Atsushi
It had been founded a long time ago, however I have been studying here for 5 years.


You need to use the passive for 'had been founded', what's wrong with 'was founded' though? Also 'obwohl' means although rather than however :smile:
Reply 4
Original post by iheartdjokovic
You need to use the passive for 'had been founded', what's wrong with 'was founded' though? Also 'obwohl' means although rather than however :smile:

On that note what is the difference between 'had been founded' and 'was founded'.
I wanted to use had been founded as it was a different tense I could use for my essay.
Original post by Atsushi
On that note what is the difference between 'had been founded' and 'was founded'.
I wanted to use had been founded as it was a different tense I could use for my essay.


Had been founded would be war gegrundet worden, was founded would be wurde gegrundet (sorry about lack of umlauts)

You'd use the two constructions in the same way as you would in English, so if it sounds a bit weird in English, then it probably does in German as well! I understand that you want to put as many different tenses in as possible though - been there, done that :tongue:

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