Preterit: be allowed to • German Grammar • Chatterbug

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Tell me, did you get to stay up late when you were young?

No, not really. I wasn't allowed to stay up longer than 9 p.m.

Were you allowed to invite your friends over any time you wanted to?

Oh, yes! I was allowed to do that.

And were you allowed to...

Wait a minute! Why so many questions about my past? Shouldn't we be learning German?

Would you rather talk about what you were or weren't allowed to do in the past in German?

Do I have a choice?

No, not really. Do you remember the verb in German?

Yes, it's in the title: dürfen.

Yes, so now we'll just take a look at the past tense and that's it!

Ich durfte nur bis 21 Uhr wach bleiben.

I was only allowed to stay up until 9 p.m.

Ich durfte immer meine Freunde einladen.

I was always allowed to invite my friends over.

Ok, I see a pattern.

If we want to use dürfen in the past tense we use:

Präteritum of dürfen + infinitive verb

So now I should learn the Präteritum form of dürfen, right?

You read my mind!