Time Grammatical Tenses - Germany

Hello all,
I'm preparing a presentation for my B2 Deutsch Kurs and I'm confuse of using the tenses. When I like to tell story about things happened 4 months or a year ago, which tense I have to use? Perfekt or Präteritum?

Some said that when it's written then präteritum is a perfect tense but when it'a spoken then better use perfekt tense. Problem is, I have to make paper first and then talk about the paper in front of the class. Other said that when the story is happened a day ago or this morning then perfekt is fine. But not sure about things happened 4 months or a year ago.

And how about plusquamperfekt? When I have to use it??

These wikipedia references can be toggled between English and German for

Perfect.
Preterite.
Plurperfect.

Practically Perfekt and Präteritum are interchangeable. (Wikipedia is wrong here. Perfekt does not have a connection to the present. Then we´d use Präsens). In everyday usage Perfekt is prefered by native speakers. That´s why German students learn it before Präteritum. The further south you go the more dominant gets Perfekt. In southern German Präteritum almost died out.

You may use Präteritum when you tell a whole story. It´s still often found in literature.

So German has nothing like the English present perfect. It´s either present (Präsens) or past (Präteritum/Perfekt) in German.

Plusquamperfekt shouldn´t be a problem it´s the same as the English Past perfect. One action happend before another in the past.

German does only distinguish strictly between two tenses (Germanic tribes didn´t need more )

Past: Präteritum, Perfekt, Plusquamperfekt

Non-Past: Präsens, Future (You can express future action with Präsens sentences, too)

I agree that the Present Perfect is definitely not the same as the German Perfekt, although it sounds almost identical. I also agree that the Perfekt is more common in the South than in the North (being a native German speaker from Munich myself and - incidentally - a teacher of English Grammar.
However, there are some words that even a "Southerner" would prefer in its Präteritum form when speaking about the past. These are all the modals (konnte, durfte, musste, sollte, etc.), because they usually require a full verb beside it, and the Perfekt (which already needs two words by default) would just make it a bit too long and awkward. Example: Ich durfte nicht spielen
as opposed to
Ich habe nicht spielen dürfen.
The same goes for the verbs sein (to be) and haben:
ich war
is better than
ich bin gewesen,
and
ich hatte
better than
Ich habe gehabt.
There are a number of other verbs that we "Southerners" also instinctively prefer in their Präteritum forms, although I don't think there exist any rules governing them. Just offhand, I know that most of us would prefer to use
Ich wollte
for
Ich habe gewollt
and
Ich wusste
for
Ich habe gewusst.
(Come to think of it, these are the only two verbs that spring to mind right now. As I said, I'm not sure if there are any rules, but something tells me that they may well be the two only ones.)
However, when you speak about an action that has a "bearing on the present", even "Northerners" tend to use the Perfekt as opposed to the Präteritum.
Example:
Hans hat sich ein Bein gebrochen! (and therefore cannot join us today).
NOBODY would say "Hans brach sich ein Bein".
I guess there you have absolute synchronicity with the English Present Perfect, which is also used to "break news" or "refer to incidents that have a bearing on the present". Other examples:
"Hast du schon gehört? In Frankreich ist ein Flugzeug abgestürzt!"
NOBODY would say:
"Hörtest du? In Frankreich stürzte ein Flugzeug ab!"
In English the Present Perfect is used for events like this, (A plane has crashed in France), although I also warn my German students that as soon as an exact time in the past is used, they have to change to Past Tense. Thus:
A plane crashed in France early this morning.
Let me know if this has been a help to you at all.
Glad to give you more when you're ready.
Greetings from stormy Munich!

Some points from the relevant chapter of the "Grammatik Duden":

• Perfekt and Präteritum are not functionally identical, but similar.
  
• Perfekt is used for refering to events in the past, not only, but especially if the result or consequence still has a bearing on the present. Example: You look out of the window and say: Es hat geschneit.
  
• Less frequent, but also possible: Perfekt used when making general statements or references to the future: Ein Unglück ist schnell geschehen./Morgen hat er sein Werk vollendet. In these contexts, Perfekt can't be replaced by Präteritum.
  
• Overmore, there is an important stylistic difference between Perfekt and Präteritum. As the other posters said, in spoken German Perfekt is the prefered past tense (with regional nuances, more so by southern German speakers). In formal written German, a succession of sentences in Perfekt would be considered bad style, that's where Präteritum is the correct tense. However, in some texts, like stories, the opening and closing sentences can be in Perfekt.
  

EDIT: What Bavairish said. So when doing a presentation, using Perfekt IMO would sound more natural, but Präteritum isn't wrong either. With certain verbs like sein and haben, the Präteritum is better simply because it's shorter than the Perfekt. The paper you're going to submit should however be written in Präteritum. So, to sum it up, the usage of Perfekt and Präteritum is less grammatically determined than that of present perfect/simple past, in German the two tenses are often interchangeable with some exceptions.

An overestimated fact IMHO. No native thinks about that.

The second sentence sounds really akward to me
I´d go for "Morgen wird er sein Werk vollendet haben" or "Morgen vollendet er sein Werk."

True, a native speaker doesn't think about it, but uses the correct form intuitively. In the example, no one would say: Es schneite when seeing snow.

Agree, there are often different possibilities. Goes to show that the temporal system in German is less defined/rigid than in other languages (i. e. English, Slavic languagues).

Like rainy days says, the way it's been hammered into me is mainly the form in which you use it. Präteritum for writing - Perfekt for speaking. There are a few exceptions (eg. some Präteritum in speaking as it's easier - for haben, sein, the modals etc / Perfekt sometimes in writing for reporting new info as in: "Bolt has broken the world record"). Contrast papers / magazines with speaking / TV etc.

I remember asking just your question at B2 . It does get confusing if you've written something (präteritum) and then have to talk independently about it (perfect) but it's not that hard with practice (which is exactly why your teachers make you do it at B2 of course). It's just setting up the habit / discipline. If I literally just read what I wrote, then I keep it präteritum (just as I would if reading a book aloud or whatever).

Both are past tenses of course. Many EL speakers connect Perfekt to EL present perfect (particularly because the "haben + participle" form looks similar) but the latter EL one is a present tense. Again, the trick (from frank78) is to formulate in German, not go down the "that's what it's like English" road.

Don't be afraid to ask your teacher for advice on the best ways to do it of course, get them to take you through it .

I thought that a Praetorian Prefect was an Imperial Roman government official.

After reading this whole thread, I am not only convinced to give up on speaking German entirely, but am starting to think the same thing about English as well!

Thank you for all replies...
At the moment it's little bit too late to ask my teacher cos we're on Herbstsferien. Monday we'll back to school and it's my turn already to do the presentation. But I'll play it safe, just like some of you said; submit the paper with präteritum tense and talk about it in perfekt (except for modalverbens and 'lassen'). It's easier for me to talk in perfekt anyway.

And Expaticus, maybe you should try to speak English Pirate like the language feature in Facebook!