5-Day Language Study Plan to Journal About Your Last Holidays

Everything you’ve built so far has lived in the present and the future — who you are, what you study or do professionally, where you’re going this weekend, just to name a few. But a language only becomes fully yours when you can also talk about what has already happened: yesterday, last weekend, last summer, when you were a child.

The past is where your stories live. This week we journal about:

“What did you do yesterday?”

This chapter opens the past through three of the most personally meaningful things you can say in a new language: what you did yesterday, where you went on the last holiday, and the experiences you’ve collected over a lifetime.

✨ Read Vietnamese version: [Hôm Qua Bạn Đã Làm Gì? Kế Hoạch Học Ngôn Ngữ 5 Ngày Về Thì Quá Khứ]

There’s also a familiar shift waiting — just as many languages use one present form for “I play” and “I am playing,” they often use one past form for “I ate” and “I have eaten.” This language study plan for the past tense shows you how each language pulls that off.

5-Day Language Study Plan Week 9 for a complete Beginner of a new Language: What Did You Do Last Weekend?

Overview: What This Language Study Plan for the Past Tense Covers

This is Chapter 9 of the Language Essential Series — same five-day rhythm, each day building on the last until you can narrate a full day, a holiday, and a life experience naturally.

Here is what this language study plan for the past tense covers across the five days:

1️⃣ Day 1 — How languages build the past tenses with past participle verb forms (what about yours in specific)

2️⃣ Day 2 — (German learners specific) “Have” or “be”? The helper verb that builds the past tense

3️⃣ Day 3 — More than one past tense: which to use, and when

4️⃣ Day 4 — Talking about experiences: “Have you ever…?”

5️⃣ Day 5 — Write and speak: yesterday, a holiday, and a life experience

After completing this chapter, you will be ready to answer these prompts from the 30-Day Language Journal Challenge:

Prompt 21 — What did you do yesterday?
Prompt 22 — Where did you go on your last holiday?
Prompt 23 — Have you ever been to a country where your target language is spoken?

Let’s break it down — one day at a time.

Day 1: How Your Language Builds the Past

English makes a sharp split between “I ate breakfast” (simple past) and “I have eaten breakfast” (present perfect). Many languages don’t — and how they build the past is the whole game:

EN: I ate breakfast. / I have eaten breakfast.

DE: Ich habe gefrühstückt. (one compound form covers both meanings)

VN: Tôi đã ăn sáng. / Hôm qua tôi ăn sáng. (a marker đã — or just a time word; the verb never changes!)

Just like one has to learn how to form Past Participle form of a verb, be it regular or irregular, one also has to learn the rules to form Past Participle in German, for example.

Next to verb forms, learn also the words that anchor a past sentence in time:

English	German	Vietnamese
yesterday	gestern	hôm qua
last week	letzte Woche	tuần trước
last year	letztes Jahr	năm ngoái
as a child	als Kind	hồi nhỏ

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📌 German learner note: German builds its everyday past (the Perfekt) with a helper verb plus a past participle at the very end of the sentence — the same “bracket” (Satzklammer) you know from Chapters 4 and 8: Ich habe gestern Tennis gespielt. One Perfekt form covers both English past meanings; a time word tells you which is meant.

YOUR TURN

👉 How does your target language build the past?

By changing the verb itself (English: cook → cooked as regular or ate → eaten as irregular)
By building a compound with a helper (German habe … gespielt)
By adding a marker or time word while the verb stays put (Vietnamese đã / hôm qua)
What else? Comment below to let me know.

👉 Day 1 goal: Narrate yesterday from morning to evening — what you ate, where you went, who you spoke to.

Example sentences

English	German	Vietnamese
Yesterday I started work very early in the morning.	Gestern habe ich sehr früh am Morgen mit der Arbeit angefangen.	Hôm qua tôi (đã) bắt đầu làm việc từ sáng sớm.
I ate lunch at work with my colleagues.	Zu Mittag habe ich mit meinen Kollegen gegessen.	Tôi (đã) ăn trưa cùng đồng nghiệp ở chỗ làm.
I was so tired yesterday when I came home from work.	Ich war gestern sehr müde, als ich von der Arbeit nach Hause gekommen bin*.	Hôm qua tôi rất là mệt khi tôi về nhà từ chỗ làm.

Day 2: “Have” or “Be”? The Helper That Builds the Past

While English transforms verbs directly to Past Participle for Past Simple Tense or combines was / were with V-ing to form Past Continuous, many languages like German build the past with a helper verb — and some make a surprising choice about which one:

Ich habe Tennis gespielt. / Ich bin in die Stadt gegangen. (movement uses “be,” not “have”!)

📌 German learner note: Most verbs build the Perfekt with haben (“have”), but verbs of movement (gehen, fahren, reisen) and change of state (aufstehen, einschlafen) take sein (“be”) — literally “I am gone.” Separable verbs tuck the ge- inside (aufgestanden); inseparable ones drop it entirely (besucht, verstanden).

Get more grammar’s detailed explanation, exercises and journal writing practice to build this past tense with:

Dear Deutsch E-Book: The Journal-Study Method Designed to Help You Reach German A2 and Speak with Confidence in 90 Days

YOUR TURN

Does your language choose between two helper verbs like German’s have / be — the way French does (j’ai fait vs je suis allé)? Or does it skip the helper entirely, like Vietnamese? English actually used to do this too (“He is risen,” “I am come”) — is there a trace of it in yours?

👉 Day 2 goal: Retell yesterday again, this time including some “movement” verbs, like in German (gehen – sein + gegangen, fahren – sein + gefahren, schlafen – sein + geschlafen).

Example sentences

English	German	Vietnamese
I got up early and went to the office by train.	Ich bin früh aufgestanden und mit der Bahn ins Büro gefahren.	Tôi (đã) dậy sớm và đi làm bằng tàu.
I had a lot of meetings today.	Ich hatte heute viele Termin.	Hôm nay tôi (đã) có rất nhiều cuộc họp.
In the evening I visited friends and we cooked together.	Abends habe ich Freunde besucht und wir haben zusammen gekocht.	Buổi tối tôi thăm bạn bè và chúng tôi cùng nấu ăn.

Day 3: More Than One Past Tense — Which, and When

Many languages have more than one past form, each with a job:

EN: It was a wonderful trip. (Past Simple) / We were travelling to Italy last summer. (Past Continuous)

DE: Es war eine schöne Reise. (Präteritum) / Wir sind letzten Sommer nach Italien gereist. (Present Perfekt)

VN: Đó là một chuyến đi tuyệt vời. / Chúng tôi đã đi Ý mùa hè năm ngoái. (one marker, đã, does the work)

📌 German learner note: German has two past tenses — the Perfekt (everyday spoken past) and the Präteritum (written/narrative past). In conversation they mix: sein, haben, and the modal verbs use Präteritum (war, hatte, wollte) even when everything else is Perfekt. Getting that one mix right — Es war schön. Wir hatten Glück. Ich wollte bleiben — makes you sound instantly natural.

YOUR TURN

👉 Does your language have more than one past tense? What decides which one — whether you’re speaking or writing (like German), how recent the event is, or whether it’s finished vs ongoing?

English splits by job (I ate vs I have eaten); Vietnamese leans on a single marker, đã, similary to Chinese using 了 at the end of a sentence.

👉 Day 3 goal: Write a short holiday story, letting “was / had / could” sit naturally beside your other past verbs.

Example sentences

English	German	Vietnamese
It was wonderfully warm — we were lucky with the weather.	Es war wunderbar warm — wir hatten Glück mit dem Wetter.	Trời ấm áp tuyệt vời — chúng tôi may mắn với thời tiết.
We rented a boat and took it out in the lake.	Wir haben ein Boot vermietet und sind mit dem Boat im See gefahren.	Chúng tôi thuê một chiếc thuyền và chèo thuyền trên hồ.
I wanted to stay longer, but I had to fly home.	Ich wollte länger bleiben, aber ich musste nach Hause fliegen.	Tôi muốn ở lại lâu hơn, nhưng tôi phải bay về nhà.

Day 4: Talking About Experiences — “Have You Ever…?”

One of the most satisfying things you can do in a new language is ask about a lifetime of experiences:

EN: Have you ever been to Germany? / I have never been there.

DE: Warst du schon einmal in Deutschland? / Ich war noch nie dort.

VN: Bạn đã bao giờ đến Đức chưa? / Tôi chưa bao giờ đến đó.

📌 German learner note: German asks about experience with schon einmal (“ever”) and pairs it with the most natural spoken form of the simple past of “to be”: Warst du schon einmal…? — shorter and smoother than the fuller Bist du … gewesen?

YOUR TURN

👉 How does your language ask “have you ever?” A set phrase like German schon einmal, a wrap-around like Vietnamese đã … chưa (literally “have … yet”), or the present-perfect “ever” of English?

👉 Day 4 goal: Answer whether you’ve ever visited a country where your target language is spoken — then turn those statement sentences into questions as if someone asked you about their experience.

Example sentences

English	German	Vietnamese
Have you ever been to Switzerland?	Warst schon einmal in der Schweiz?	Bạn đã bao giờ đến Thụy Sỹ chưa?
No, I’ve never been to Switzerland — but I’d love to go.	Nein, ich war noch nie in der Schweiz — aber ich möchte sehr gerne hin.	Chưa, tôi chưa bao giờ đến Thụy Sĩ — nhưng tôi rất muốn đi.
I have, however, visited Vienna.	Ich habe aber Wien besucht.	Tuy nhiên, tôi đã từng đến thăm Vienna.

Day 5: Put It All Together

This is your production day. Over four days you have built the full past-tense toolkit — how your language shapes the past, the helper-verb choice, the division of labour between past tenses, and the “have you ever” structure for experiences.

Now you bring it into three personal entries. Build each one yourself with the frameworks below.

What You Did Yesterday: Prompt 21’s Writing Framework

Yesterday was ___.

In the morning I ___.

Then I ___, and after that I ___.

In the evening I ___ — it was ___.

Your Last Holiday: Prompt 22’s Writing Framework

My last holiday was in ___.

I travelled to ___ by ___.

It was ___, and the weather ___.

I really wanted to ___, and I ___.

After ___, I travelled home again.

Have You Ever…?: Prompt 23’s Writing Framework

(Yes) Yes, I’ve been to ___ — I went there ___.

It was ___.

(No) No, I’ve never been to a country where ___ is spoken — but I’d most like to visit ___, because ___.

Fill each blank with your own memories, and you’ll have three complete, natural entries — every structure from Days 1–4 has a place to land.

👉 Day 5 goal: Use the frameworks to write your own Prompts 21–23. Then read them aloud, and try telling a friend’s or family member’s story using he/she forms.

📘 Inside Dear Deutsch: complete worked Sample Writing for all three prompts — full German model entries (a full day narrated, a holiday story, and a “have you ever” answer) with English translations, plus “write it for another person” versions and a fill-in-the-blank self-check.

The frameworks above get you writing; the e-book shows you exactly what a polished, natural German entry looks like — with the Perfekt and Präteritum mixed the way native speakers actually do it.

Chapter 9 Completion Checklist

Before moving on, check that you can do each of the following without looking at your notes:

✅ Build a past sentence the way your language does — changed verb form, helper + participle, or a marker
✅ Anchor it in time with “yesterday,” “last week,” “as a child,” and more
✅ Choose the right helper verb, if applicable (watch out for the “movement” verbs like in German!)
✅ Handle any second past tense your language has, and know when each is used
✅ Ask and answer “Have you ever…?”
✅ Narrate a full day from morning to evening
✅ Tell the story of a past trip
✅ Write and speak all three journal prompts in full

If you can tick every box, you have completed this language study plan for the past tense — wonderfully done.

What’s Next?

You’ve just unlocked the past — and with it, the ability to tell stories. That’s the moment a language stops being a set of facts about your life and starts becoming a running narrative: what you did, where you went, what you’ve seen.

In Chapter 10, the focus shifts from time and tenses to meaning and connection. You’ll learn how to give reasons (“because…”) and how to express opinions, agreement, and disagreement (“I think that…”, “That’s true”, “I see it differently”) — the structures that turn your sentences into a genuine point of view.

Stay tuned and stay informed via MyA5Letter — subscribers always hear about new chapters first!

Until next time — Happy Language Learning!

Suani 💕

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