Is it grammatically correct to say "er habe"?
I'm reading a book in German and came across the following sentence:
"Am nächsten Tag sagte Vater, es tue ihm Leid, dass er mich geschlagen habe, er habe das nicht gewollt."

The word "habe" caught my attention, because I thought it should have been "hat". I don't remember ever seeing "er" and "habe" being listed together in any word conjugation list that I've studied, but I'm wondering if I'm wrong and maybe I missed something.

So is it grammatically correct to say "er habe" or does the book have a typo? Does writing "habe" in that sentence give it a different meaning than if the word "hat" had been written instead?

Question

Is it grammatically correct to say "er habe"?
I'm reading a book in German and came across the following sentence:
"Am nächsten Tag sagte Vater, es tue ihm Leid, dass er mich geschlagen habe, er habe das nicht gewollt."

The word "habe" caught my attention, because I thought it should have been "hat". I don't remember ever seeing "er" and "habe" being listed together in any word conjugation list that I've studied, but I'm wondering if I'm wrong and maybe I missed something.

So is it grammatically correct to say "er habe" or does the book have a typo? Does writing "habe" in that sentence give it a different meaning than if the word "hat" had been written instead?

Answer

For indirect speech the subjunctive mood is used. But many native speakers use just 'er hat' instead of 'er habe', especially in spoken German. So your example is perfectly ok! ;)
https://www.dartmouth.edu/~deutsch/Grammatik/Subjunctive/KonjunktivI.html

Answer

Thanks for pointing that out, Marco! I didn't even notice that.

Answer

... The same goes for "es tue ihm *leid". (see Alex answer)

Answers · 4

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