Reflexive sentence in past tense
Hi there,

How do I put the following reflexive sentence into the past tense;

I am very annoyed

= Ich habe mich sehr geärgert.

I WAS very annoyed

It sounds logical to say;

Ich war mich sehr geärgert

but ‘war’ is the imperfect of ‘sein’ and not haben, so I’m guessing it could be;

Ich hatte mich sehr geärgert

but that doesn’t sound right??

Thanks, Gem

Question

Reflexive sentence in past tense
Hi there, 

How do I put the following reflexive sentence into the past tense;

I am very annoyed 

= Ich habe mich sehr geärgert.

I WAS very annoyed

It sounds logical to say;

Ich war mich sehr geärgert

but ‘war’ is the imperfect of  ‘sein’ and not haben, so I’m guessing it could be;

Ich hatte mich sehr geärgert

but  that doesn’t sound right??

Thanks, Gem

Answer

I am very annoyed = Ich ärgere mich sehr.
I was very annoyed = Ich ärgerte mich sehr = Ich habe mich sehr geärgert.

Don't let the English variant influence what you think about the German variant. "to be annoyed" and "sich ärgern" are different constructions (and have slightly different meanings, BTW), and the first already uses "to be", while the second doesn't and takes the normal auxiliary verb "haben".

Answer

Dirk hat recht. Aber "to be annoyed" kann auch mit "verärgert sein" übersetzt werden!

I am very annoyed = Ich bin sehr verärgert.
I was very annoyed = Ich war sehr verärgert.

Answer

Ich habe mich sehr geärgert. = I GOT very annoyed. (not WAS)

This can imply you are still annoyed, or you were annoyed before, but not any more. Good variants are given above.

Answer

Eh? "ich habe mich sehr geärgert" is already in the past tense.
"ich hatte mich sehr geärgert" is pluperfect.