German pluperfect with modal verbs (Specific Languages) Language Learning Forum

German pluperfect with modal verbs
Tags: Verbs/Conjugation \| German
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Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages

beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4623 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian	Message 1 of 2 28 May 2013 at 2:45pm \| IP Logged
	The way I understand it, the pluperfect is used when you are relating events in the past tense and suddenly have to refer to an action that took place significant further back in the past. For example: I walked into the restaurant and sat down. I had already booked a table. "had booked" is the pluperfect, this event took place before you even entered the restaurant. In German I would say "ich hatte einen Tisch reserviert" which more or less mirrors the English version. It seems to me that the English and German pluperfect tenses occur at exactly the same points. The one thing to watch out for is that the German past participles that go with sein use waren in the pluperfect, instead of hatten. But can we have a pluperfect with modal verbs? For example: This time she spoke much better English at the conference. She had been able to practise the language on holiday last year. Could we say something like "sie hatte letztes Jahr die Sprache im Urlaub üben können"? Or do we avoid the above construction by saying "sie hatte letztes Jahr die Sprache im Urlaub geübt", or perhaps "sie konnte letztes Jahr die Sprache im Urlaub üben." 1 person has voted this message useful
daegga Tetraglot Senior Member Austria lang-8.com/553301 Joined 4522 days ago 1076 posts - 1792 votes Speaks: German*, English^C2, Swedish, Norwegian Studies: Danish, French, Finnish, Icelandic	Message 2 of 2 28 May 2013 at 3:58pm \| IP Logged
	it's possible but here is another possibility: "Sie hatte letztes Jahr im Urlaub die Möglichkeit gehabt, die Sprache zu üben." I usually avoid the pluperfect altogether, at least in spoken German ;) 1 person has voted this message useful

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