machte

Machte is the simple past tense (Präteritum) form of the German verb machen, meaning to make or to do. It corresponds to the English past tense forms such as “made” or “did.” The form machted is used for first person singular and third person singular in the past: ich machte, er/sie/es machte. In the plural, the past tense is expressed with machten (wir machten, sie machten).

Usage and style

Machte is commonly found in written German, including narratives, reports, and historical writing. In everyday spoken German, speakers often prefer the present perfect construction hat gemacht to describe past actions, especially in informal contexts. The Präteritum, including macht­e forms like ich machte and er machte, remains frequent in journalism, literature, and formal speech.

Conjugation outline

The verb machen is regular, so the Präteritum forms for the singular persons are: ich machte, du machtest, er/sie/es machte. The plural form is wir machten, ihr machtet, sie machten. The spelling reflects the stem mach- with the -te past-tense ending for the singular forms.

Cross-linguistic note

The sequence macht-e resembles the Dutch past tense form gemaakt(e) in the verb maken, where the past tense singular is maakte. While similar in spelling, the German and Dutch forms belong to different languages and conjugation systems.

See also

Machen (the base verb), German verb conjugation, Präteritum.