Literal translation of the day, part 3

Today, we get to have some fun with two facts: first, the fact that for the past tense, spoken German rarely uses the simple past ("I saw him") and instead generally uses the present perfect ("I have seen him"); second, the fact that German shoves all verbs but one to the end of each sentence. (This is one thing that makes it tricky to translate between German and English. You have to wait for the entire sentence in German because there are likely one or two extra verbs lurking at the end of the sentence just waiting to jump out and ambush you.)

In English, you'd say "I went to New York last week." This is simple past. If you wanted to use present perfect, you could say "I have gone to New York last week." That's awkward in English, but that's how they do it in German. You also have to switch around the word order, starting with the time and ending with one of the verbs. So, we now have, "Last week have I to New York gone."

Except we're still not done. Rather than "to have," German uses the appropriate form of the verb "to be" to convey motion with the past tense. This results in, "Last week am I to New York gone." (If you want to see it in German, it's Letzte Woche bin ich nach New York gegangen.)

Next time you want to impress someone at a party, walk up to him or her and say, "Last week am I to New York gone." They'll think you're either crazy or Swiss.