K rozdílu použití Perfekta a Präterita v Němčině se teď na
redditu objevilo srozumitelné vysvětlení. Co mě navíc zaujalo, je rozdíl významu Präteritum/Perfektum u sloves typu geben finden zvýrazněný níže.
"[...] Präteritum is used primarily for written storytelling. So if you're writing a novel, you use Präteritum for all the narration. It isn't really a "past tense" in the sense that it says those things are over, but rather the present relative to the story. Which might be set in the past, or the future, or a fictional universe. The past relative to the story is in Plusquamperfekt (which is just Präteritum applied to Perfekt). Präteritum used to be a general past tense in German though, like its equivalent in English.
Perfekt on the other hand is the primary way to talk about the past relative to the present. Its original function was to indicate that something is finished in the present, similar to the way present perfect works in English, but it has been extended more and more and is now just the regular past tense.
However, this development was only really completed in the very south: Switzerland, Austria, the southernmost parts of Germany. In those regions, Perfekt is used consistently for all verbs, at least in dialect, but in those regions there's a tendency to do so in Standard German, too. Sometimes "war" may slip in, but "ist gewesen" is also common.
The more north you go, the more verbs will be used in Präteritum. Especially grammatical helper verbs and modals (to avoid having three verbs). It's also more common for verbs that don't actually refer to an action.
For example "geben" is used more in Perfekt when referring to actually giving something ("ich habe ihm einen Tipp gegeben") but more in Präteritum for "es gibt" ("dort gab es viel zu Essen"). Same with "finden": for actually finding something, Perfekt is preferred, but for having opinions, Präteritum: "das fand ich ganz gut". [...]"