I'm a beginner with a question on when to use sein or haben for the past partciple. In my virtual notebook I'm collecting all sorts of grammar rules from various grammar manuals in order to provide myself with a quick and easy way to store and organize the multitude of rules in German grammar. Here's what I've collected so far, and I've tried to order them in such a way where it would be easy to figure out whether to use haben or sein. Should I just stick to the fact that sein takes the intransitive and haben taking the transitive?

1. Is the verb expressing something that has happened to people outside of their control rather than something that people have done? If the verb is outside of their control, use sein. Think Heidegger's Dasein who is being thrown into the world.

n.b. I don't know anything about the philosophy of Heidegger. I just think it's sort of odd/neat that German grammar would actually care about whether or not the verb is is being done by the individual's control or by external forces.

¶ 8:38 AM