Learning German from English
Created: 2014-04-24
Last Goal: 2022-01-26
Daily Goal: 10 XP
Timezone: UTC-5
Last update: 2022-01-26 21:20:31 GMT+3
bin · bist · brot · du · ein · eine · er · es · frau · ich · ist · junge · kind · mann · mädchen · und · wasser
17 words
Welcome to the German course! We will provide you with tips and notes throughout the course. However, be aware that these are optional. Only read them when you feel stuck, or when you are interested in the details. You can use the course without them.
Often, it's best to just dive into the practice. See how it goes! You can always revisit the Notes section later on.
In German, all nouns are capitalized. For example, "my name" is mein Name, and "the apple" is der Apfel. This helps you identify which words are the nouns in a sentence.
Nouns in German are either feminine, masculine or neuter. For example, Frau (woman) is feminine, Mann (man) is masculine, and Kind (child) is neuter.
While some nouns (Frau, Mann, …) have natural gender like in English (a woman is female, a man is male), most nouns have grammatical gender (depends on word ending, or seemingly random).
For example, Mädchen (girl) is neuter, because all words ending in -chen are neuter. Wasser (water) is neuter, but Cola is feminine, and Saft (juice) is masculine.
It is important to learn every noun along with its gender because parts of German sentences change depending on the gender of their nouns.
For now, just remember that the indefinite article (a/an) ein is used for masculine and neuter nouns, and eine is used for feminine nouns. Stay with us to find out how "cases" will later modify these.
| gender | indefinite article |
|---|---|
| masculine | ein Mann |
| neuter | ein Mädchen |
| feminine | eine Frau |
Verb conjugation in German is more complex than in English. To conjugate a regular verb in the present tense, identify the stem of the verb and add the ending corresponding to any of the grammatical persons, which you can simply memorize. For now, here are the singular forms:
Example: trinken (to drink)
| English person | ending | German example |
|---|---|---|
| I | -e | ich trinke |
| you (singular informal) | -st | du trinkst |
| he/she/it | -t | er/sie/es trinkt |
Like in English, sein (to be) is completely irregular, and its conjugations simply need to be memorized. Again, you will learn the plural forms soon.
| English | German |
|---|---|
| I am | ich bin |
| you (singular informal) are | du bist |
| he/she/it is | er/sie/es ist |
Umlauts are letters (more specifically vowels) that have two dots above them and appear in some German words like Mädchen.
Literally, "Umlaut" means "around the sound," because its function is to change how the vowel sounds.
| no umlaut | umlaut |
|---|---|
| a | ä |
| o | ö |
| u | ü |
An umlaut change may change the meaning. That's why it's important not to ignore those little dots.
If you can't type these, a workaround is to type "oe" instead of "ö", for example.
In German, there's no continuous aspect. There are no separate forms for "I drink" and "I am drinking". There's only one form: Ich trinke.
There's no such thing as Ich bin trinke or Ich bin trinken!
When translating into English, how can I tell whether to use the simple (I drink) or the continuous form (I am drinking)?
Unless the context suggests otherwise, either form should be accepted.
0 words
In the previous lesson, you learned the singular forms of some modal verbs:
| ich | kann | mag |
| du | kannst | magst |
| er/sie | kann | kann |
In the plural, these verbs have regular endings. They often use a different vowel than the singular forms:
| wir | können | mögen |
| sie | können | mögen |
In German, every verb has an infinitive form (similar to "to learn" in English). The first and third person plural are always the same:
| learn | drive | have | |
|---|---|---|---|
| infinitive | lernen | fahren | haben |
| wir | lernen | fahren | haben |
| sie | lernen | fahren | haben |
Here is a revision of the singular forms:
| learn | drive | have | |
|---|---|---|---|
| ich | lerne | fahre | habe |
| du | lernst | fährst | hast |
| er/sie/es | lernt | fährt | hat |
So far, you learned how to say "my, your, his, her":
| Engl. | fem./pl. | masc. Nom./neut. | masc. Akk. |
|---|---|---|---|
| my | meine | mein | meinen |
| your (sg.) | deine | dein | deinen |
| his/its | seine | sein | seinen |
| her/their | ihre | ihr | ihren |
Remember that the endings are the same as for "ein" and "kein":
| Engl. | fem./pl. | masc. Nom./neut. | masc. Akk. |
|---|---|---|---|
| a(n) | eine | ein | einen |
| no | keine | kein | keinen |
"Their" is the same as "her" in German, and "its" the same as "his".
If you find these hard to remember, just keep practicing! Why not revisit some of the earlier skills, too?
In addition, you learn "our" and "your (plural)" here:
| Engl. | fem./pl. | masc. Nom./neut. | masc. Akk. |
|---|---|---|---|
| our | unsere | unser | unseren |
| your (pl.) | eure | euer | euren |
| their | ihre | ihr | ihren |
Notice that "euer" loses an "e" when it gets a suffix.
Again, instead of trying to memorize tables, it is best to just jump into practice, and use them until you get a feeling for them.
By now, you encountered the numbers from one to twelve:
| 1 | eins | 7 | sieben | |
| 2 | zwei | 8 | acht | |
| 3 | drei | 9 | neun | |
| 4 | vier | 10 | zehn | |
| 5 | fünf | 11 | elf | |
| 6 | sechs | 12 | zwölf |
Notice that they are very similar to the numbers in English.
These numbers never change form, apart from number one. Eins is only used when nothing comes after it:
frauen · ihr · jungen · kinder · männer · seid · sie · sind · wir
9 words
In English, making plurals out of singular nouns is typically as straightforward as adding -(e)s at the end of the word. In German, the transformation is more complex. You will learn details about this in a later lesson.
In some languages (such as French or Spanish), genders are also differentiated in the plural. In German, the plural form does not depend on what gender the singular form is.
Regardless of grammatical gender, all plural nouns take the definite article die (You will later learn how "cases" can modify this). This does not make them feminine. The grammatical gender of a word never changes. Like many other words, die is simply used for multiple purposes.
Just like in English, there's no plural indefinite article.
| English | German |
|---|---|
| a man | ein Mann |
| men | Männer |
Most languages use different words to address one person, or several people.
In German, when addressing a single person, use du:
If you are talking to more than one person, use ihr:
Some English speakers would use "y'all" or "you guys" for this plural form of "you".
Note that these only work for people you are familiar with (friends, family, …). For others, you would use the formal "you", which we teach later in this course. So stay tuned :)
If you're new to German, ihr and er may sound confusingly similar, but there is actually a difference. ihr sounds similar to the English word "ear", and er sounds similar to the English word "air" (imagine a British/RP accent).
Don't worry if you can't pick up on the difference at first. You may need some more listening practice before you can tell them apart. Also, try using headphones instead of speakers.
Learn the pronouns together with the verb endings. This will greatly reduce the amount of ambiguity.
Here is the complete table for conjugating regular verbs:
Example: trinken (to drink)
| English person | ending | German example |
|---|---|---|
| I | -e | ich trinke |
| you (singular informal) | -st | du trinkst |
| he/she/it | -t | er/sie/es trinkt |
| we | -en | wir trinken |
| you (plural informal) | -t | ihr trinkt |
| they | -en | sie trinken |
Notice that the first and the third person plural have the same ending.
And here's the complete table for the irregular verb sein (to be):
| English | German |
|---|---|
| I am | ich bin |
| you (singular informal) are | du bist |
| he/she/it is | er/sie/es ist |
| we are | wir sind |
| you (plural informal) are | ihr seid |
| they are | sie sind |
You will learn about the distinction between "formal" and "informal" later (it's easy).
0 words
0 words
Remember that German has two ways of expressing "you" (singular and plural)?
Surprise! There is a third form, usually used with people you don't know well. German just uses the third person plural for this (they):
| person | trinken |
|---|---|
| du | trinkst |
| ihr | trinkt |
| sie/Sie | trinken |
How to know whether the meaning is "they" or "you"? German writes the "you" forms in upper case.
Of course, at the beginning of the sentence, this does not work. It can then mean both:
When using the polite form, you usually combine it with the last name of a person, and Herr/Frau:
As mentioned earlier, sometimes a noun endings gives away the gender:
A common way to turn a verb into a noun is to add -ung to the word stem. These nouns will always be feminine:
Later on, you will learn more of these regular noun endings.
In German, you just add the quantity before the noun:
Willkommen only means welcome as a greeting. It will not mean you're welcome.
As in English, you can use the present tense to talk about the present and the future:
Also as in English, the past requires a different tense. Here, you learn how to say "I was":
The endings are like those of the modal verbs (müssen, können, …). But the stem never changes:
| Person | sein (to be) | können (can) |
|---|---|---|
| ich | war | kann |
| du | warst | kannst |
| er/sie/es | war | kann |
| wir | waren | können |
| ihr | wart | könnt |
| sie/Sie | waren | können |
Many learners of German struggle with expressing where they went:
Germany is actually simpler here: it just uses ich war:
0 words
0 words
0 words
For now, think of im as "inside", and "ins" as "into":
Later on, you will see these are part of a larger pattern.
Im is also used for months and seasons:
So far, you learned these verb forms:
| learn | drive | have | |
|---|---|---|---|
| infinitive | lernen | fahren | haben |
| ich | lerne | fahre | habe |
| du (you sg.) | lernst | fährst | hast |
| er/sie/es | lernt | fährt | hat |
| wir | lernen | fahren | haben |
| sie | lernen | fahren | haben |
Here you learn the form for the last person, "you (plural)".
This form always has a "-t" ending, and the stem of the verb will always be the same as the infinitive. Contrast with the third person singular, where there may be stem changes:
| learn | drive | have | |
|---|---|---|---|
| infinitive | lernen | fahren | haben |
| er/sie/es | lernt | fährt | hat |
| ihr (you pl.) | lernt | fahrt | habt |
In English, you can say:
Previously, you learned "mögen" means "to like":
However, this can only be used with nouns. For verbs, there is a structure that English does not use. It is therefore often confusing for beginners of German.
Gern is an adverb, not a verb. Literally, Germans say "I swim likingly." Here's a tip: If you know where in the sentence to put "oft" (often), you know where to put "gern":
Gern may be written/spoken as gerne, these two forms are exactly the same.
0 words
0 words
Questions can be asked by switching the subject and verb. For instance, "Du verstehst das." (You understand this) becomes "Verstehst du das?" (Do you understand this?). These kinds of questions will generally just elicit yes/no answers. In English, the main verb "to be" follows the same principle. "I am hungry." becomes "Am I hungry?". In German, all verbs follow this principle. There's no do-support.
Six W-questions - "Wer" (Who), "Was" (What), "Wo" (Where), "Wann" (When), "Warum" (Why) and "Wie" (How) - can be asked in German to elicit more than yes/no answers. Two of the six adverbs are declineable (i.e. change with the case), whereas four are not.
"Wer" is declinable and needs to adjust to the four cases. The adjustment depends on what the question is targeting.
Similar to the changes made to "wer," "was" will decline depending on the four cases.
In German, you can inquire about locations in several ways. "Wo" (where) is the general question word, but if you are asking for a direction in which someone or something is moving, you may use "wohin" (where to). Look at: "Wo ist mein Schuh?" (Where is my shoe?) and "Wohin kommt dieser Wein?" (Where does this wine go?). Furthermore, "Wohin" is separable into "Wo" + "hin." For example, "Wo ist mein Schuh hin?" (Where did my shoe go?).
Note that the sound of "Wer" is similar to "Where" and that of "Wo" to "Who," but they must not be confused. In other words: the two German questions words "Wer" (Who) and "Wo" (Where) are false cognates to English. They mean the opposite of what an English speaker would think.
"Wann" (when) does not change depending on the case. "Wann" can be used with conjunctions such as "seit" (since) or "bis" (till): "Seit wann haben Sie für Herrn Müller gearbeitet?" (Since when have you been working for Mr. Müller?) and "Bis wann geht der Film?" (Till when does the movie last?).
"Warum" (why) is also not declinable. "Wieso" and "Weshalb" can be used instead of "Warum." For an example, take "Warum ist das Auto so alt?" = "Wieso ist das Auto so alt?" = "Weshalb ist das Auto so alt?" (Why is that car so old?).
0 words
For English every, German uses jeder. However, its ending changes like "der, die, das":
| gender, case | the | every |
|---|---|---|
| masc. Nom. | der | jeder |
| neut. Nom/Akk. | das | jedes |
| fem. Nom./Akk. | die | jede |
| masc. Akk. | den | jeden |
| m/n Dativ | dem | jedem |
| fem. Dativ | der | jeder |
Times are in accusative in German:
blitz · blitz · blitze · donner · gewitter · grad · nass · regen · regenbogen · regenbogen · regenschirm · regnet · schneit · sturm · sturms · trocken · wetter · wolke
18 words
Das Gewitter refers to bad weather with lightning and thunder, not necessarily to strong winds. Hence, we do not accept the translation "storm" in this course.
cousine · cousinen · cousinen · cousins · halbbruder · halbbrüder · halbschwester · halbschwestern · hochzeit · hochzeit · neffen · nichten · onkel · partnerschaft · partnerschaften · schwanger · tanten · tanten · urenkel · urgroßmutter · urgroßmütter · verheiratet · verwandte · verwandte · verwandten · zwilling · zwilling · zwillinge · zwillinge · zwillinge
30 words
Tall people are groß, not hoch, and short people are klein, not kurz.
This is why German people will often refer to tall people as "big" :)
These are French words. While it is possible to write Cousine as Kusine now, German never found a way to actually spell Cousin differently. This is because German originally does not have the French sound at the end. Some people pronounce it like "Kusäng" instead.
Both Die Frau kennt ihren Onkel and Die Frau kennt seinen Onkel are grammatically correct, but they don't have the same meaning.
When you say Die Frau kennt ihren Onkel, you're either talking about the woman's own uncle, another female person's uncle, or the uncle of multiple people.
When you say Die Frau kennt seinen Onkel, you're talking about another person's uncle, and that person is male. People can know other people's relatives.
0 words
Remember that the standard way to create the perfect participle is to add ge- to the beginning of the verb stem, and -t to the end:
Verbs that do not have the stress on the first syllable do not get a ge- in the beginning.
There are two classes of these. First, it includes all verbs ending in -ieren, as these are stressed on the -ie-:
The other one you will encounter in the next skill.
Notice that these look like the third person singular, but they are not:
0 words
Remember that the ending for articles, pronouns and adjectives is -n in dative plural:
In addition, plural nouns that do not end in -n already will also get an -n:
As you can see above, -s plural endings break this rule.
0 words
0 words
apotheke · apotheke · apotheken · billig · bäckerei · bäckerei · bäckereien · einkaufswägen · einkaufszentrum · geschäft · gratis · gutschein · gutschein · gutscheine · gutscheine · kasse · kassen · kunde · kunden · kunden · kunden · kundinnen · laden · läden · marktplatz · sonderangebot · sonderangebot · sonderangebote · supermarkt · supermarkt · supermärkte · tüte · tüten · verkaufe · verkaufen · verkaufst · verkauft
37 words
Kaufen is normally used in the meaning of "to buy":
Einkaufen is normally used without an object, and often refers to shopping. It can be used in conjunction with gehen:
Verkaufen means "to sell". The prefix ver- is often associated with an "away" notion.
A variety of words exist for "shop". These are two common ones, with roughly exchangeable usage.
abenteuer · abenteuer · afrika · afrika · afrika · auto · auto · autos · bahn · bahn · bayern · bayern · besuch · boot · boote · buche · buchen · buchst · bucht · bus · bus · bushaltestelle · bushaltestelle · bushaltestellen · busse · fahrrad · fahrrad · fahrräder · fahrt · ferien · fliegst · fliegt · flug · flüge · flüge · frankreich · frankreich · fähre · fähren · großbritannien · großbritannien · hamburg · italien · mietwagen · mietwagen · mietwägen · motorrad · motorräder · motorräder · pass · pässe · reise · reise · reiseführer · reisen · schweden · schweiz · schweizer · schweizer · sehenswürdigkeiten · spanien · spanien · stadtplan · stadtplan · stadtpläne · strecke · strecke · strecken · strecken · taxi · tour · touren · tourismus · urlaub · verkehr · verspätung · visa · visum · wandere · wandern · wandern · wanderst · wandert · wandert · weg · weg · wege · wien · zoll · zoll · zug · züge · österreich · österreich
94 words
The word Sehenswürdigkeit (sight as in sightseeing) is made up of several meaningful parts: sehen + s + würdig + keit.
Let's look at each part and its meaning.
| Part | Meaning |
|---|---|
| sehen | to see |
| -s- | connecting element |
| würdig | to be worthy |
| -keit | noun suffix |
Literally Sehenswürdigkeit means something which is worthy to see.
The connecting element -s- is used to link words together.
The ending -keit turns an adjective into a noun.
Often the ending of a compound noun is a good indicator for the gender of the noun. For example, if a noun ends in -keit, it will always be feminine (die).
Just like in English there's "holidays" and "vacation", in German there are Ferien and Urlaub. They can be used interchangeably to some extent.
Ferien only exists as a plural noun:
Urlaub only exists as a singular noun:
In English, you need "a visa". In German, the singular is das Visum, Visa is the plural (as it is in Latin, the source language of this word).
Der Weg (with a long -e-) roughly means "the path".
The word weg (with a short, open -e-) roughly means "away". Here are some examples:
0 words
0 words
0 words
0 words
0 words
Das Lebensmittel (though normally used in plural) refers to anything that can be eaten or drunk.
The French word for French fries (which are actually from Belgium) is "pommes frites" (literally "fried apple" - don't ask :). German took this, and pronounces it the French way (without the -es). However, in common language, it got shortened to either "Pommes" or "Fritten", which are pronounced like regular German words.
A short word on the audio that goes with the sentences: these are recordings of a computer voice, and sometimes off. Please report any errors! But experience shows that it can take a long time for these to get corrected (there's nothing we, the course creators, can do about it).
Die Scheibe (slice) is mostly used for bread, cheese and sausage, but also for window panes. Otherwise, use das Stück (piece):
Many European languages use so-called "reflexive verbs". Think of "I see myself in the mirror". In the same way, German would say:
We teach these in more depth later on, but here is a list of pronouns that are used for them here:
| Nom. | Acc. | Acc. reflexive |
|---|---|---|
| ich | mich | mich |
| du | dich | dich |
| er | ihn | sich |
| es | es | sich |
| sie | sie | sich |
| wir | uns | uns |
| ihr | euch | euch |
| sie/Sie | sie/Sie | sich |
Notice how they are the same as the normal accusative pronouns, with one difference: All third persons will just use sich.
The reflexive verbs taught here are:
Reflexive verbs should generally be learned together with the preposition they use.
One way to say "because" in German is denn:
This is straightforward. However, German more commonly uses weil instead, which you will learn soon. Weil is harder to use, because it changes the position of the verb. But if you always use denn, your German will sound slightly stiff.
A common way to create nouns from adjectives is to add -heit or -keit to them. These will always be feminine.
0 words
In general, nouns have two forms, singular and plural:
In dative plural, all nouns that do not already have an -n ending get one:
In this skill, you encounter a special all-masculine noun group. These will have an -en ending in all forms, except for the nominative singular (the dictionary form):
This group includes:
Here is an example table for der Junge (the boy):
| Case | Singular | Plural |
|---|---|---|
| Nominative | der Junge | die Jungen |
| Accusative | den Jungen | die Jungen |
| Dative | dem Jungen | den Jungen |
There is one last group of irregular nouns. These are actually adjectives that became nouns, but keep their rich set of adjective endings. As long as you know the adjective endings, these are straightforward to use:
| Adjective | Noun |
|---|---|
| ein deutscher Mann | ein Deutscher |
| der deutsche Mann | der Deutsche |
| eine deutsche Frau | eine Deutsche |
| mit einer deutschen Frau | mit einer Deutschen |
Refer to the Clothes skill for an overview of the adjective endings.
In this skill, you encounter:
| Adjective | Adj. noun (masc. sg.) |
|---|---|
| deutsch (German) | Deutscher (German) |
| erwachsen (adult) | Erwachsener (adult) |
| verwandt (related) | Verwandter (relative) |
| bekannt (known) | Bekannter (acquaintance) |
0 words
0 words
0 words
0 words
0 words
apfelsaft · bier · durst · ei · eis · erdbeere · essen · fisch · fisch · fisch · fleisch · fleisch · frisch · gemüse · gut · hunger · kaffee · kaffee · kartoffel · käse · käse · lecker · nudeln · obst · orange · orange · orangensaft · pizza · reis · saft · salz · salz · schmeckt · schokolade · suppe · süß · tee · wein · zucker · öl
40 words
Most likely, food is being consumed at the table. The German preposition am is the contraction of an (at/on) and dem (the). For example, The man eats at the table is Der Mann isst am (an + dem) Tisch. Since an can translate to both at and on, am can translate to both at the and on the, depending on the context. For example an dem Tisch only translates to at the table (context: spatial relationship between things) and an dem Tag only translates to on that day (context: temporal).
In English, you can say "I'm having bread" when you really mean that you're eating or about to eat bread. This does not work in German. The verb haben refers to possession only. Hence, the sentence Ich habe Brot only translates to I have bread, not I'm having bread. Of course, the same applies to drinks. Ich habe Wasser only translates to I have water, not I'm having water.
We're aware that dinner is sometimes used synonymously with lunch, but for the purpose of this course, we're defining Frühstück as breakfast, Mittagessen as lunch, and dinner / supper as Abendessen / Abendbrot.
A compound word is a word that consists of two or more words. These are written as one word (no spaces).
The gender of a compound noun is always determined by its last element. This shouldn't be too difficult to remember because the last element is always the most important one. All the previous elements merely describe the last element.
die Autobahn (das Auto + die Bahn)
der Orangensaft (die Orange + der Saft)
das Hundefutter (der Hund + das Futter)
Sometimes, there's a connecting sound (Fugenlaut) between two elements. For instance, die Orange + der Saft becomes der Orangensaft, der Hund + das Futter becomes das Hundefutter, die Liebe + das Lied becomes das Liebeslied, and der Tag + das Gericht becomes das Tagesgericht.
The word süß means sweet when referring to food, and cute when referring to living beings.
0 words
0 words
0 words
0 words
0 words
0 words
0 words
0 words
0 words
0 words
0 words
0 words
0 words
As described in earlier skills, the adjective ending for "das, der, die, eine" ist -e:
| gender | article | adjective | noun |
|---|---|---|---|
| fem. | die | alte | Frau |
| fem. | eine | alte | Frau |
| masc. | der | alte | Mann |
| neut. | das | kleine | Kind |
| pl. | — | alte | Männer |
In the last skill, you learned that for neuter, either the article or the adjective (but not both!) need to have an -s ending:
| gender | article | adjective | noun |
|---|---|---|---|
| neut. | das | kleine | Kind |
| neut. | ein | kleines | Kind |
The same logic applies to masculine forms. Either the article or the adjective end in -r:
| gender | article | adjective | noun |
|---|---|---|---|
| masc. | der | alte | Mann |
| masc. | ein | alter | Mann |
Nominative and accusative are the same for neuter, feminine and plural.
Keep in mind that for masculine accusative, the articles and the adjective both get -en endings:
| gender | article | adjective | noun |
|---|---|---|---|
| masc. | den | alten | Mann |
| masc. | einen | alten | Mann |
Now you can use all nominative and accusative forms, and also (in general) all dative forms (which so far all end in -en)!
Ordinals are adjectives, and carry the same endings:
The general rule is that from one to nineteen, you add a -t- between number and adjective ending:
| 2. | zweite |
| 4. | vierte |
| 8. | achte |
| 10. | zehnte |
| 12. | zwölfte |
| 19. | neunzehnte |
Starting with twenty, you add -st- instead:
| 20. | zwanzigste |
| 42. | zweiundvierzigste |
| 100. | hundertste |
| 1000. | tausendste |
Only three forms are irregular:
| 1. | erste |
| 3. | dritte |
| 7. | siebte |
Note that in German, you just place a dot after a number to indicate it is an ordinal.
By now, you have encountered all the pronouns for all the three main cases:
| Nom. | Acc. | Dat. |
|---|---|---|
| ich | mich | mir |
| du | dich | dir |
| er | ihn | ihm |
| es | es | ihm |
| sie | sie | ihr |
| wir | uns | uns |
| ihr | euch | euch |
| sie/Sie | sie/Sie | ihr/Ihr |
The next table shows the possessive pronouns. Only two endings are given here:
| Person | Nom. masc./neut. | Nom./Akk. fem./pl. |
|---|---|---|
| ich | mein | meine |
| du | dein | deine |
| er/es | sein | seine |
| sie | ihr | ihre |
| wir | unser | unsere |
| ihr | euer | eure |
| sie/Sie | ihr/Ihr | ihre/Ihre |
Note that for euer, the last -e- of the word stem gets lost when adding an ending.
The complete endings set is the same as for ein:
| Case + gender | example poss. pronoun |
|---|---|
| Nom. m/n, Acc n | mein |
| Acc m | meinen |
| Nom/Acc f/pl | meine |
| Dat m/n | meinem |
| Dat f | meiner |
| Dat pl | meinen |
In this skill, you will encounter the following irregular perfect participles:
| Infinitive | Perfect participle |
|---|---|
| schlafen | geschlafen |
| essen | gegessen |
| singen | gesungen |
| trinken | getrunken |
| finden | gefunden |
| helfen | geholfen |
| gehen | gegangen |
| verstehen | verstanden |
In addition, there is a small group of "mixed" verbs, that change the verb stem, but keep the -t ending:
| Infinitive | Perfect participle |
|---|---|
| rennen | gerannt |
| brennen | gebrannt |
| müssen | gemusst |
0 words
0 words
0 words
0 words
0 words
abendessen · abendessen · abendessen · bohnen · butter · frühstück · frühstücke · frühstücken · frühstückst · frühstückt · frühstückt · gabel · gabeln · gabeln · getränk · hauptgericht · honig · honig · hähnchen · knoblauch · koche · kochen · kochst · kocht · kocht · kuchen · löffel · löffel · marmelade · messer · messer · mittagessen · mittagessen · müsli · nachtisch · nachtisch · nuss · nüsse · pilz · pilze · rezept · salat · salzig · sauer · scharf · senf · senf · speisekarte · speisekarte · tomate · vorspeise · zitrone · zu abend · zu mittag · zwiebeln
55 words
Die Küche (the kitchen) and der Kuchen (the cake) are often confused by learners. To German ears, they sound quite different. One reason is that in Küche, the vowel is short, while the vowel in Kuchen is long.
| singular | plural |
|---|---|
| die Küche | die Küchen |
| der Kuchen | die Kuchen |
Kochen (to cook) also has a short vowel.
Schmecken is very similar to the English word "to taste":
In addition, schmecken can be used by itself:
Müsli originally refers to "Bircher Müesli", a Swiss breakfast dish, based on rolled oats and fresh or dried fruits.
Nowadays, people will use it for all kinds of cereals or granola, often with high sugar content.
Hähnchen usually refers to a chicken that has been turned into a dish. While derived from the word for "male chicken" (der Hahn), the only distinction today is that it is a food item.
Remember that words ending in -chen are always neuter: das Hähnchen.
Salat can refer to the dish, as well as to the green leaves (usually lettuce) that often go into it.
0 words
0 words
0 words
0 words
0 words
0 words
0 words
0 words
The German word for "to eat" is essen. However, many people use a different word for animals:
The forms of both verbs are the same:
| person | essen | fressen |
|---|---|---|
| ich | esse | fresse |
| du | isst | frisst |
| er/sie/es | isst | frisst |
| wir | essen | fressen |
| ihr | esst | fresst |
| sie/Sie | essen | fressen |
| perf. part. | gegessen | gefressen |
Remember that for most nouns in German, the word determines the gender, not the meaning:
For animals, there is usually a general word with a certain grammatical gender. "Katze" is feminine. That does not mean that the specific cat is necessarily female!
German has specific male/female versions for some of these, but we do not teach them at this point.
Liebling means "darling":
When combined with other nouns, it means "favorite":
Note that German often glues an "s" or an "n" between two noun word parts.
Similar to helfen (to help), danken is part of a small number of verbs that only have a dative object:
Think of "giving help/thanks to" somebody, and you will get it right.
Instead of "to be afraid of", German says "I have fear of":
It is sometimes necessary to learn the preposition together with the verb. Vor takes the dative when used together with Angst haben.
0 words
0 words
Questions can be asked by switching the subject and verb. For instance,
becomes
These kinds of questions will generally just elicit yes/no answers. In English, the main verb "to be" follows the same principle. "You are hungry." becomes "Are you hungry?".
In German, all verbs follow this principle. There's no do-support.
There are seven W-questions in German:
| English | German |
|---|---|
| what | was |
| who | wer |
| where | wo |
| when | wann |
| how | wie |
| why | warum |
| which | welcher |
Don't mix up wer and wo, which are "switched" in English :)
Some of these will change according to case.
If you ask was with a preposition, the two normally turn into a new word, according to the following pattern:
| English | preposition | wo- |
|---|---|---|
| for what | für | wofür |
| about what | über | worüber |
| with what | mit | womit |
If the preposition starts with a vowel, there will be an extra -r- to make it easier to pronounce.
This wo- prefix does not mean "where".
Wer is declinable and needs to adjust to the cases. The adjustment depends on what the question is targeting.
If you ask for the subject of a sentence (i.e. the nominative object), wer (who) remains as is:
If you ask for the direct (accusative) object in a sentence, wer changes to wen (who/whom). As a mnemonic, notice how wen rhymes with den in den Apfel.
You will soon learn about the Dative case. You have to use wem then. And there is a forth case in German (Genitive). You would use wessen here. This corresponds to English "whose".
The endings look like the endings of der (but don't change with gender/number):
| case | masc. | Form of wer |
|---|---|---|
| nominative | der | wer |
| accusative | den | wen |
| dative | dem | wem |
Welche- words are used to ask about for a specific item out of a group of items, such as "which car is yours?".
This declines not only for case, but also for gender. The endings are the same as for definite articles:
| article | welch* |
|---|---|
| der | welcher |
| das | welches |
| die | welche |
| die (pl.) | welche |
| den | welchen |
In German, you can inquire about locations in several ways.
Wo (where) is the general question word, but if you are asking for a direction in which someone or something is moving, you may use *wohin* (where to).
Consider these examples:
Wo ist mein Schuh? (Where is my shoe?)
Wohin gehst du? (Where are you going (to)?)
Furthermore, wohin is separable into wo + hin:
The same goes for woher (where from):
might become
| English | German |
|---|---|
| where | wo |
| where to | wohin |
| where from | woher |
Wann (when) does not change depending on the case. Wann can be used with conjunctions such as seit (since) or bis (till):
Seit wann wartest du? (Since when have you been waiting?)
Bis wann geht der Film? (Till when does the movie last?).
Don't confuse wann with wenn which you learned in Conjunctions. Both translate to "when" in English, but they have different functions in German.
Wann kommst du? (When are you coming?)
Ich schlafe nicht, wenn ich Musik höre. (I don't sleep when I listen to music)
Warum (why) is also not declinable. It will never change endings. Wieso, Weshalb, and Weswegen can be used instead of Warum. There's no difference in meaning.
Here is an example. All four following sentences mean "Why is the car so old?".
Warum ist das Auto so alt?
Wieso ist das Auto so alt?
Weshalb ist das Auto so alt?
Weswegen ist das Auto so alt?
Wie viel is used with uncountable or countable nouns (how much/how many), and wie viele is only used with countable nouns (how many). Some people think that "wie viel" can only be used with uncountable nouns, but that is not true.
Wie viel Milch trinkst du? (How much milk do you drink?)
Wie viel(e) Tiere siehst du? (How many animals do you see?)
0 words
0 words
0 words
0 words
0 words
0 words
0 words
0 words
0 words
0 words
Ein Student is a university student and a Schüler is a pupil/student at a primary, secondary or high school. Students attending other types of schools such as language or dancing schools may also be called Schüler.
When talking about your or someone else's profession in sentences such as I'm a teacher or She's a judge, German speakers usually drop the indefinite article (ein/eine).
It sounds more natural to say Ich bin Lehrer and Sie ist Richterin than Ich bin ein Lehrer and Sie ist eine Richterin. This rule also applies to students.
If you add an adjective, you can't drop the article. Er ist ein schlechter Arzt (He's a bad doctor) is correct, but Er ist schlechter Arzt is not.
Also note that you can't drop the definite article (der/die/das).
The grammatical gender usually matches the biological sex of the person you're referring to.
So the word that refers to a male baker is grammatically masculine, and the word that refers to a female baker is grammatically feminine.
In the vast majority of cases, the female variant is formed by simply adding the suffix -in to the male variant, e.g. der Bäcker becomes die Bäckerin and der Schüler (the pupil) becomes die Schülerin.
The plural of the female variant is formed by adding the ending -innen to the singular of the male variant, e.g. die Bäckerinnen and die Schülerinnen.
Keep in mind that, in some cases, the plural comes with an umlauted stem vowel. This applies to the female variant as well.
| singular | plural | |
|---|---|---|
| male | der Koch | die Köche |
| female | die Köchin | die Köchinnen |
You learn one more word like this in this lesson:
There are a few words for people where the grammatical and the natural gender differ. One of them is der Boss. There is no feminine version for it, although there are certainly female bosses.
0 words
0 words
angst · böse · böse · dumm · ehrlich · eindruck · ernst · ernst · freude · gar · gedanke · gedanken · glück · glück · hassen · hasst · humor · interessant · lache · lachen · lacht · lacht · langweilig · liebe · liebe · lieben · lieben · lieber · liebling · liebling · lieblings · liebst · liebt · lust · nett · not · ruhe · ruhe · ruhe · schlau · schlimm · spaß · spaß · stolz · tapfer · total · traum · träume · träume · träumen · träumt · unheimlich · verständnis · witz · witz · witzig · wunsch · wunsch · wünsche · ärger
60 words
In German, every vowel can be long or short. The short one often sounds more open than the long one.
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is given for the geeks among you :) But you can also copy/paste one of these symbols into Wikipedia to get an in-depth explanation of it (with sound!).
| vowel | short | IPA | long | IPA |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| a | Mann | /a/ | Bahn | /aː/ |
| ä | Bälle | /ɛ/ | Käse | /ɛː/ |
| e | rennen | /ɛ/ | Beere | /eː/ |
| i | Mitte | /ɪ/ | ziehen | /iː/ |
| o | oft | /ɔ/ | ohne | /oː/ |
| ö | Hölle | /œ/ | schön | /øː/ |
| u | Mutter | /ʊ/ | Buch | /uː/ |
| ü | Müll | /ʏ/ | Bücher | /yː/ |
You can also google "german sounds" for a longer introduction to German sounds.
German has a range of spelling convention which will clearly show whether a vowel is short or long:
A vowel before a double consonant will be short:
Note that instead of "zz" (which only occurs in the Italian "Pizza"), German uses tz. Instead of "kk", we use ck.
There are also some signals that clearly show the vowel is long.
Sometimes, the vowel will be doubled:
There might be a silent h behind the vowel:
Note that if you read the list above, you should not hear a single h sound. It is geh|en, not ge|hen.
For i, it is more common to have an -e after it (sometimes even -eh):
Again, the h will be silent: Be|zieh|ung, not Be|zie|hung.
But sometimes, there will not be a signal.
The following examples have an unmarked long vowel:
And here are some short ones:
For these, you just have to trust your language feeling, it will normally not be a big problem :)
0 words
0 words
0 words
0 words
0 words
0 words
0 words
0 words
0 words
0 words
0 words
0 words
0 words
German has four cases. You already learned two so far, nominative and accusative.
Nominative is used for sentence subjects.
Accusative is mostly used for sentence objects. Some prepositions will use accusative, too.
The third important case is "dative".
Here are the first three dative pronouns for you, together with the nominative and accusative counterparts:
| Nom. | Akk. | Dat. |
|---|---|---|
| ich | mich | mir |
| du | dich | dir |
| sie (fem.) | sie | ihr |
As the accusative, the dative case has several functions.
Some prepositions go with dative:
mit, zu, aus, von, bei
Komm mit mir! (Come with me!)
For most verbs, the object is in the accusative case:
A few verbs use the dative instead:
Some verbs have two objects. The one identifying the "other person involved in a transaction" will also be in dative:
These three cases will appear in most sentences, so take your time to get a feeling for them.
There is a fourth case (genitive), but it is not used a lot.
Germans mostly use a system similar to English. There is one important and confusing difference: While English uses "half past seven", German will say "half eight".
| Time | |
|---|---|
| 10:00 | zehn (Uhr) |
| 10:05 | fünf nach zehn |
| 10:15 | viertel nach zehn |
| 10:30 | halb elf |
| 10:45 | viertel vor elf |
| 10:55 | fünf vor elf |
In addition, the 25 and 35 minutes will refer to the half hour:
| Time | |
|---|---|
| 10:25 | fünf vor halb elf |
| 10:35 | fünf nach halb elf |
This colloquial system only uses hours from one to twelve.
German official time uses hours from zero to 24:
| Time | |
|---|---|
| 10:12 | zehn Uhr zwölf |
| 22:50 | zweiundzwanzig Uhr fünfzig |
Similar to English, the imperative omits the pronoun. You will learn more about this later. For now, just remember that to say "Come (on)!", German uses Komm! (not kommst, as you might have suspected).
0 words
0 words
0 words
0 words
bananen · bananen · bären · eier · enten · erdbeeren · fische · fliegen · hunde · insekten · kartoffeln · kartoffeln · katzen · käfer · kühe · menschen · menschen · mäuse · orangen · orangen · schweine · spinnen · tiere · tomaten · vögel · zeitungen · zeitungen · äpfel
28 words
In English, making plurals out of singular nouns is typically as straightforward as adding an -(e)s at the end of the word:
In German, different nouns have different ways of forming the plural.
Generally, you will probably have to memorize the plurals in the beginning. Later on, your brain will notice regular patterns that are not easily explained.
However, there are some major regularities that are very helpful to know. If you apply these, the task of mastering German plurals will become much easier :)
All nouns ending in -e, and most feminine nouns will add an -(e)n ending in the plural.
Most nouns ending in a full vowel will add an -s in the plural.
This does not apply to nouns ending in -e (which is not a full vowel).
Many of these words are of foreign origin. Some other foreign words will also get the -s plural:
There is no change for neuter or masculine nouns that have any of these singular endings:
-chen, -lein, -el, or -er.
das Mädchen, die Mädchen
Some words for close family members will have an umlaut change:
If words with these endings are feminine, the plural will end in -n:
Most German one-syllable nouns will add an -e in their plural form. There might be an umlaut change.
Many other masculine or neuter nouns will need the -er ending, and there may be umlaut changes.
Job descriptions are usually masculine:
To refer to a female, German adds -in:
As you can see, some of these get an umlaut change. The same umlaut change will happen in the plural.
The plural of the masculine forms usually refers to mixed, as well as all-male groups:
If you want to specify that you are talking about a group consisting of women, use the feminine plural forms. These will add -innen in the plural.
0 words
fleck · flecken · hemd · hemden · hose · hose · hosen · hut · hüte · hüte · jacke · jacken · jacken · jacken · kleid · kleid · kleider · kleidung · kleidung · knopf · knöpfe · kosmetik · mantel · mäntel · passt · passt · ring · ringe · ringe · rock · rock · röcke · schmuck · schuh · schuhe · tasche · taschen · trage · tragen · tragt · trägst · trägt
42 words
Das Kleid means "the dress", and die Kleider means "the dresses", but the plural die Kleider can also mean "clothes" or "clothing". In most cases, "clothing" (or "clothes") translates to Kleidung (usually uncountable), but it's important to be aware that Kleider can be used in that sense as well.
Both Hose and Hosen translate to "pants" ("trousers" in British English), but they're not interchangeable. The singular Hose refers to one pair of pants, and the plural Hosen refers to multiple pairs of pants.
0 words
0 words
ausland · ausland · bereich · bereiche · bereichen · bezirk · bezirk · bezirke · bundesland · bundesland · bundesländer · europa · europa · ferienhaus · ferienhaus · ferienhäuser · ferienhäuser · flughafen · flughafen · fläche · flächen · gegenüber · grund · grundstück · grundstück · grundstücke · gründe · halle · halle · hallen · hauptstadt · hauptstädte · heimat · hof · höfe · innenstadt · innenstadt · innenstädte · innere · innere · insel · insel · inseln · kneipe · kneipe · kneipen · ort · ort · ort · orte · pension · pension · platz · platz · plätze · region · regionen · standort · standort · standorte · umgebung · umgebung · unterkunft · unterkunft · wohne · wohnen · wohnst · wohnt · zentrale · zentren · zentrum · zentrum
72 words
Germany is a Federal Republic (Bundesrepublik). It consists of 16 federal states, which have some degree of autonomy. These are called Bundesländer.
Die Pension has different meanings, depending on context. Here it means "guest house". It can also mean "retirement pay".
0 words
balkon · balkone · bett · bett · betten · dach · decke · decken · dächer · fenster · fenster · keller · keller · keller · küche · ladegerät · ladegeräte · lampe · lampe · licht · lichter · möbel · schlafzimmer · schlafzimmer · schlüssel · schlüssel · schrank · schränke · schränke · sofa · sofas · steckdose · steckdosen · steckdosen · stuhl · stuhl · stühle · teppich · teppich · teppiche · tisch · tisch · tische · treppe · treppe · treppen · tür · türen · wand · wohnung · wohnung · wohnungen · wohnzimmer · wände · zaun · zäune · öffne · öffnen · öffnet
59 words
Möbel corresponds to English "furniture". While "furniture" is singular, Möbel is normally only used in the plural.
besuche · besuchen · besuchst · besucht · besucht · bevölkerung · einwohner · gemeinde · gemeinden · man · nutzer · nutzer · paar · paare · verbindung · verbindungen · verbindungen · verein · vereine · verhältnis · öffentlichkeit
21 words
Der Verein (the r is silent) is something between a club and a society. It is very common in Germany: There are almost 600,000 eingetragene Vereine (publicly registered associations) in Germany. They bear the abbreviation e.V..
A Verein might help the homeless, offer tennis lessons, dance together, among many other activities.
In English, you can say "you can say" or "one can say". In German, man is commonly used for this purpose. It does not imply that only male people are included, think of it like the English "man" as in "mankind".
Grammatically, it works exactly like er:
Ein paar (lowercase p) means a few, some or a couple (of) (only in the sense of at least two, not exactly two!).
Ein Paar (uppercase P) means a pair (of) and is only used for things that typically come in pairs of two, e.g. ein Paar Schuhe (a pair of shoes).
So this is quite similar to English "a couple" (a pair) vs. "a couple of" (some).
0 words
0 words
0 words
0 words
0 words
0 words
0 words
arme · auge · auge · augen · bein · beine · blut · brust · brüste · drücke · drücken · drückt · finger · fuß · füße · füße · gesicht · gesichter · haar · haare · haare · hals · hand · hand · haut · herz · herzen · hälse · hände · hände · kopf · köpfe · körper · körper · magen · magen · mund · mägen · münder · nasen · ohr · rücken · rücken · schulter · schultern · schultern · zahn · zahn
48 words
Der Hals refers to the whole connection between head and shoulders. German does have more specialized words for "neck" and "throat", but we normally use Hals for both.
Das Haar normally refers to a single hair. It can be used to refer to all the hair on someone's head, but is considered slightly outdated or poetic.
Das Bein refers to the leg. It used to mean "bone" a long time ago. This meaning survives in some word combinations:
Der Magen is the stomach, the part of your body that starts digestion. It is not commonly used to refer to the belly (der Bauch).
Die Brust can have several meanings, depending on context.
0 words
0 words
achtundzwanzig · achtzig · dreiundzwanzig · dreißig · einundzwanzig · fünfzig · hundert · hundertdreiundzwanzig · liter · liter · meter · milliarde · milliarden · million · millionen · neunzig · prozent · prozente · sechzig · siebzig · tausend · vierundzwanzig · vierzig · zwanzig · zweiundachtzig · zweiunddreißig · zweiundvierzig
27 words
You learned earlier that the numbers from 1-19 are very similar to those in English.
This mostly continues in German, with one important quirk. Did you ever notice that the digits in numbers 13-19 are kind of "switched" in English? German continues that through to 99.
So 84 would be vier|und|acht|zig (literally, four and eighty).
This might take some getting used to, but at least it's consistent ;)
For "100", people would usually just say hundert, not einhundert (as in English).
There used to be two different systems for huge numbers, called "short scale" and "long scale". Unfortunately, German and American English ended up with different ones. British English used to use the long scale, but switched to short scale.
| Number | US English (short scale) | German (long scale) |
|---|---|---|
| 10^6 | million | Million |
| 10^9 | billion | Milliarde |
| 10^12 | trillion | Billion |
| 10^15 | quadrillion | Billiarde |
| 10^18 | quintillion | Trillion |
(10^6 means a one with six zeros)
blau · blaue · blauen · blauen · braun · braune · bunt · bunte · buntes · farbe · farbe · farben · gelb · grau · grauen · grauen · grün · grüne · grünen · grünes · pink · rot · rot · rot · rote · roten · roter · rotes · rotes · schwarz · schwarze · schwarzen · schwarzes · schwarzes · weiß · weiße · weißen · weißer · weißes
39 words
When an adjective comes before a noun, its ending will change according to this noun.
Die Katze ist alt.
Das ist eine alte Katze.
You can think of the adjective endings as "markers", that kind of mark what part of speech the adjective belongs to.
Remember that Nominative is used for the subject of a sentence. These are the nominative adjectives:
| gender | article | adjective | noun |
|---|---|---|---|
| masc. | der | rote | Hut |
| ein | roter | Hut | |
| neut. | das | rote | Hemd |
| ein | rotes | Hemd | |
| fem. | die | rote | Rose |
| eine | rote | Rose | |
| Plural | die | roten | Schuhe |
| keine | roten | Schuhe | |
| - | rote | Schuhe |
While that might look a bit chaotic, there is not so much going on:
1) Masculine: Either the article, or the adjective must have the -r ending. The same goes for neuter and -s.
2) Feminine and Plural end in -e. If you add an article, you also have to add an -n.
Do you remember that quite often, the accusative looks like the nominative? Specifically, only the articles for masculine nouns change.
The same goes for the adjectives. The accusative endings are the same as for Nominative; the only exception is for masculine nouns. The changes are marked in bold in the table below.
3) Masculine accusative: adjective ends in -en
| gender | article | adjective | noun |
|---|---|---|---|
| masc. | den | roten | Hut |
| einen | roten | Hut | |
| neut. | das | rote | Hemd |
| ein | rotes | Hemd | |
| fem. | die | rote | Rose |
| eine | rote | Rose | |
| Plural | die | roten | Schuhe |
| keine | roten | Schuhe | |
| - | rote | Schuhe |
Dative, as always, is even simpler.
4) Dative: all adjectives get an -en ending
| gender | article | adjective | noun |
|---|---|---|---|
| masc. | dem | roten | Hut |
| einem | roten | Hut | |
| neut. | dem | roten | Hemd |
| einem | roten | Hemd | |
| fem. | der | roten | Rose |
| einer | roten | Rose | |
| Plural | den | roten | Schuhen |
| keinen | roten | Schuhen | |
| - | roten | Schuhen |
Remember that in dative,
0 words
0 words
A Student is a university student and a Schüler is a pupil/student at a primary, secondary or high school. Students attending other types of schools such as language or dancing schools may also be called Schüler.
When talking about your or someone else's profession in sentences such as I'm a teacher or She's a judge, German speakers usually drop the indefinite article (ein/eine). It sounds more natural to say Ich bin Lehrer and Sie ist Richterin than Ich bin ein Lehrer and Sie ist eine Richterin. This rule also applies to students.
If you add an adjective, you can't drop the article. Er ist ein schlechter Arzt (He's a bad doctor) is correct, but Er ist schlechter Arzt is not.
Also note that you can't drop the definite article (der/die/das).
The grammatical gender usually matches the biological sex of the person you're referring to, i.e. the word that refers to a male baker is grammatically masculine, and the word that refers to a female baker is grammatically feminine. In the vast majority of cases, the female variant is formed by simply adding the suffix -in to the male variant, e.g. der Bäcker becomes die Bäckerin and der Schüler (the pupil) becomes die Schülerin.
The plural of the female variant is formed by adding the suffix -innen to the singular of the male variant, e.g. die Bäckerinnen and die Schülerinnen.
Keep in mind that, in some cases, the plural comes with an umlauted stem vowel. This applies to the female variant as well, e.g. der Koch becomes die Köche and die Köchin becomes die Köchinnen.
0 words
baumwolle · beton · beton · eisen · glas · gold · holz · kupfer · leder · mauer · mauern · metall · papier · papier · papiere · pappe · plastik · silber · stahl · stein · steine · wolle · wolle
23 words
Plastik is one of the few words that changes meaning, depending on which gender it is.
In English, "wood" can refer to a material, and to a forest.
In German, Holz only refers to the material. Der Wald is "the forest". We also have a word der Forst, but it only refers to a maintained forest (something like a garden for trees), where the trees are grown for commercial purposes.
dritte · dritte · dritten · erste · erste · erste · ersten · erstes · fünfte · mathematik · sechste · sechste · siebte · vierte · ähnlich
15 words
German ordinal numbers are pretty regular. The general rule is:
| number range | ending |
|---|---|
| 1-19 | -te |
| > 19 | -ste |
| Irregular forms | |
|---|---|
| 1. | erste |
| 3. | dritte |
| 7. | siebte |
Ordinal numbers behave like adjectives, so their endings will change accordingly:
Er kennt den ersten Sänger.
Er ist am sechsten August geboren.
Ich bin seine tausendste Lehrerin.
0 words
bessere · besseren · beste · besten · besten · eher · ganz · gewöhnlich · gute · guten · guten · guter · gutes · normalerweise · sehr · super · ziemlich
17 words
Please refer to the lesson "Comparisons" for a table of comparative and superlative forms, especially how to form the irregular forms.
In the last lesson, you learned the comparative:
As in English, there is also a superlative:
Der Papagei ist am ältesten. (The parrot is the oldest.)
Sie rennt am schnellsten. (She runs the fastest.)
Am ältesten works like an adverb (How is he? - the oldest; How does she run? the fastest). That means its endings will never change.
Like in English, you can also use superlatives as adjectives.
Remember that adjectives change their endings according to the noun, if they come before the noun:
Now, consider these two sentences:
Both translate to "My dog is the oldest", and both are possible in German. The last one is more common though, and we recommend you only use this one for now.
On the other hand, you cannot say:
This is because you can't put an adverb in front of a noun. That's what adjectives are for.
Don't forget that with adjectives, you have to use the right ending to match with the noun:
As a rough guideline, use a form like die älteste, den ältesten, … before a noun, and am ältesten at the end of a sentence.
The word "ganz" has several functions in German. As an adjective, it means "whole":
As as adverb, it can intensify or de-intensify other words (depending on which other word you use).
Consider "very fast" vs. "quite fast" in English. "Very" is an intensifier, "quite" is a de-intensifier.
Here's a table to get an idea of the problem:
| Intensifies | De-Intensifies |
|---|---|
| schlecht | gut |
| oben | nett |
| vorne | sympathisch |
| früh | schön |
| sicher | interessant |
| toll | gern |
| furchtbar | lustig |
| … | ok |
Consider these examples:
You see the problem :) Ganz is tricky to use for beginners. For now, better use these two words instead:
total (always means "really")
Der Film war total gut. (The film was really nice.)
0 words
alltag · anfang · bald · bis · danach · dienstag · donnerstag · ende · ende · endlich · freitag · inzwischen · mittwoch · montag · samstag · samstage · sonntag · sonntage · spätestens · tag · tage · tage · tagen · täglich · vergangenheit · werktag · werktage · woche · woche · wochen · wochenende · wochenenden · wöchentlich · zukunft · zukunft
35 words
Earlier, the weekday started with Sunday:
| English | German |
|---|---|
| Sunday | Sonntag (sun) |
| Monday | Montag (moon) |
| Tuesday | Dienstag (god "Tyr"?) |
| Wednesday | Mittwoch (middle of week) |
| Thursday (Thor!) | Donnerstag (thunder) |
| Friday | Freitag (goddess Freya) |
| Saturday (Saturn) | Samstag (sabbath) |
However, we changed to Monday as the start of the week, which makes Mittwoch sound a bit silly now :)
If you want to say "on Monday" and so on, that would be am Montag.
Here's a mnemonic to remember when to use which:
0 words
0 words
außen · da · dort · draußen · drinnen · drüben · hier · hinten · innen · nebenan · oben · unten · vorne · überall
14 words
When talking about locations in English, you can use here, there, this, and that to express that something is close or far away. In German the word da is commonly used when talking about locations. The good thing about da is, you don't have to worry about the distance! It can mean anything close or far away.
Let's look at a few examples:
With hier (here) and dort (there) you can be more specific about the distance.
You can also say da oben for "up there" and so on:
You can combine all of them with articles, and use them similar to this and that !
Many people use this with the other articles as well. Note that while all of the following constructs are commonly used in spoken language, they are not appropriate for written, formal language.
To refer to one specific thing, you can put a noun between the article and hier/da/dort.
For example:
Some people might add drüben. This translates to over there.
Innen and außen mostly refer to the inside and outside of objects.
Drinnen and draußen are normally only used for rooms (more generally, enclosed spaces that people can be in).
alkohol · alkohol · blute · bluten · blutest · blutet · blutet · diät · ernährung · formular · formulare · gesundheit · klinik · klinik · krank · krankenhaus · krankenhaus · krankenhäuser · krankenversicherung · krankenwagen · krankenwägen · krankheit · krankheiten · medikament · medikamente · medikamente · medizin · medizin · notfall · notfall · notfälle · opfer · opfer · opfern · patient · patienten · patienten · pflaster · praxis · rollstuhl · rollstühle · schlechte · schlechter · therapie · unfall · unfall · unfälle · untersuchung · untersuchungen · zahnarzt · zahnärztin
51 words
Das Pflaster is a small adhesive bandage.
Depending on where you live, you may call it "Band-Aid", "plaster" or "Elastoplast" in English.
The German word Pflaster does not refer to a plaster cast. The German for plaster cast is der Gips(verband).
0 words
alter · april · august · daten · datum · dezember · dezember · dezember · endet · februar · frühling · geburtstag · geburtstag · geburtstage · heiß · herbst · jahr · jahr · jahre · jahre · jahren · jahreszeiten · jahrhundert · jahrhundert · jahrhunderte · januar · juli · juni · jährlich · kalender · kühl · letzte · mai · monat · monate · monatlich · märz · märz · märz · november · oktober · phase · phasen · quartal · quartale · saison · saison · schluss · schluss · september · sommer · spargel · spargel · vorbei · weihnachten · winter
56 words
Just as in English you have "year/yearly", German has the same word pairs. In German, some of these have an umlaut change:
| noun | adjective |
|---|---|
| das Jahr | jährlich |
| der Monat | monatlich |
| der Tag | täglich |
| die Stunde | stündlich |
| die Minute | minütlich |
| die Sekunde | sekündlich |
Why does monatlich not change? All others are emphasized on the syllable that changes. Monatlich is emphasized on the first syllable.
The seasons in German are as follows:
| English | German |
|---|---|
| spring | der Frühling |
| summer | der Sommer |
| autumn | der Herbst |
| winter | der Winter |
Herbst sounds similar to "harvest", and Frühling has früh (early) in it.
When you refer to seasons or months, you use im. Here's the mnemonic again that helps you remind which is which:
0 words
0 words
0 words
In German, every vowel can be long or short. The short one often sounds more open than the long one.
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is given for the geeks among you :) But you can also copy/paste one of these symbols into Wikipedia to get an in-depth explanation of it (with sound!).
| vowel | short | IPA | long | IPA |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| a | Mann | /a/ | Bahn | /aː/ |
| ä | Bälle | /ɛ/ | Käse | /ɛː/ |
| e | rennen | /ɛ/ | Beere | /eː/ |
| i | Mitte | /ɪ/ | ziehen | /iː/ |
| o | oft | /ɔ/ | ohne | /oː/ |
| ö | Hölle | /œ/ | schön | /øː/ |
| u | Mutter | /ʊ/ | Buch | /uː/ |
| ü | Müll | /ʏ/ | Bücher | /yː/ |
You can also google "german sounds" for a longer introduction to German sounds.
German has a range of spelling convention which will clearly show whether a vowel is short or long:
A vowel before a double consonant will be short:
Note that instead of "zz" (which only occurs in the Italian "Pizza"), German uses tz. Instead of "kk", we use ck.
There are also some signals that clearly show the vowel is long.
Sometimes, the vowel will be doubled:
There might be a silent h behind the vowel:
Note that if you read the list above, you should not hear a single h sound. It is geh|en, not ge|hen.
For i, it is more common to have an -e after it (sometimes even -eh):
Again, the h will be silent: Be|zieh|ung, not Be|zie|hung.
But sometimes, there will not be a signal.
The following examples have an unmarked long vowel:
And here are some short ones:
For these, you just have to trust your language feeling, it will normally not be a big problem :)
abend · abend · abends · augenblick · damals · dann · dauer · dauer · etwa · fast · früh · gerade · gestern · halb · heute · jetzt · lange · minute · minuten · mittag · mitternacht · moment · morgen · morgen · morgen · nacht · nacht · nachts · nächte · nächte · sekunde · sekunden · sekunden · sofort · spät · später · stunde · stunde · stunden · stunden · termin · termine · uhr · uhr · uhr · uhren · uhrzeit · uhrzeit · viertel · zeit · zeit · zeiten · zeitpunkt · zeitpunkt · zeitpunkt · zeitpunkte · zeitraum
57 words
German uses a system similar to English:
| English | German | |
|---|---|---|
| morning | der Morgen | am Morgen |
| - | der Vormittag | am Vormittag |
| noon | der Mittag | am Mittag |
| afternoon | der Nachmittag | am Nachmittag |
| evening | der Abend | am Abend |
| night | die Nacht | in der Nacht |
| midnight | die Mitternacht | um Mitternacht |
It's generally pretty straightforward. Remember this mnemonic:
Am Montag, am Mittag. Just "at night there are different rules": in der Nacht and um Mitternacht are irregular.
All of these have an adverbial form:
Similar to Spanish, the words for "tomorrow" and "morning" are the same in German. Unlike Spanish, German escapes this problem by choosing a different word when they clash.
Instead of morgen am Morgen or morgen morgens we say morgen früh.
In German, there are "official" and informal ways to say the time. Here's the official one (often used on radio and television):
Official time uses a 24 hour system, from zero to 24.
Don't confuse "hour" and Uhr (they are false friends):
| English | German |
|---|---|
| the hour | die Stunde |
| o'clock | Uhr |
Die Uhr can also mean "clock" or "watch". Die Stunde can also mean "lesson" (which confusingly might not last one hour).
In everyday life, people will often use informal time.
There are several systems, with two forms dominant. In many parts of Germany, this system is used:
| Time | English | German |
|---|---|---|
| 14:05 | five past two | fünf nach zwei |
| 14:10 | ten past two | zehn nach zwei |
| 14:15 | a quarter past two | Viertel nach zwei |
| 14:20 | twenty past two | zwanzig nach zwei |
| 14:25 | twenty-five past two | fünf vor halb drei |
| 14:30 | half past two | halb drei |
| 14:35 | thirty-five past two | fünf nach halb drei |
| 14:40 | twenty to three | zwanzig vor drei |
| 14:45 | a quarter to three | Viertel vor drei |
| 14:50 | ten to three | zehn vor drei |
| 14:55 | five to three | fünf vor drei |
Yes, the part in the middle is very confusing :) German considers the next hour to be half full. In addition, German relates "X:25" and "X:35" to the half hour.
0 words
0 words
all · all · bach · bach · bernstein · bäche · flüsse · gras · klima · pflanze · pflanzen · pflanzen · rhein · rhein · see · strand · strand · strom · strom · strände · tierwelt · tierwelt · umwelt · umwelt · wald · wald · welle · wellen · welt · wiese · wiese · wälder · wüste · wüste · wüsten
35 words
Der See means "the lake". Die See means "the sea, the ocean". It is less commonly used. German uses more often das Meer or der Ozean for the latter.
Check out Bodensee and Nordsee on Google Maps and see if you can figure out which one is feminine and which one is masculine :)
Der Strand means "the beach". This meaning still survives in the English adjective "stranded" (literally, ended up on a lonely beach).
In English, "wood" can refer to a material, and to a forest.
In German, Holz only refers to the material. Der Wald is "the forest". We also have a word Der Forst, but it only refers to a maintained forest (something like a garden for trees), where the trees are grown for commercial purposes.
0 words
0 words
0 words
0 words
0 words
0 words
0 words
boden · böden · geschenk · geschenke · katalog · katalog · kataloge · paket · pakete · plan · plan · pläne · produkt · produkte · produkte · produkten · sache · sachen · schere · scheren · scheren · stelle · stelle · stellen · stück · zubehör
26 words
Pants used to be two hoses, until somebody had the idea of stitching them together. Glasses are now joined into one object. If you deconstruct scissors into multiple objects, you have two awkward knives and a screw.
German uses the singular for all of these. Die Hose is "a pair of pants". Die Hosen (plural) is at least two pairs of pants.
Die Stelle has the meaning of "position" in at least two ways. It can be a location, or it can be a job position.
The common German word German for "gift" is das Geschenk. Das Gift means "poison". The reason is that a long time ago, "gift" in the meaning of "something that is given" was used as an euphemism for poison.
The original meaning survives in the word die Mitgift (dowry).
0 words
0 words
0 words
akademie · akademie · akademien · ausbildung · ausbildung · bildung · bildung · erziehung · fachbereich · forschung · grundschule · grundschule · grundschulen · gymnasien · gymnasium · hochschule · hochschule · hochschulen · institut · institut · institute · kindergarten · kindergarten · kindergärten · klasse · klasse · klassen · klassen · kurs · kurs · kurse · lehre · leser · leser · leser · note · noten · noten · prüfung · prüfung · prüfung · prüfungen · prüfungen · seminar · seminare · seminare · stift · stifte · stifte · stiften · studierst · studium · test · tests · training · training · uni · uni · uni · unis · universität · unterricht · weiterbildung · überlege · überlegst · übung · übung · übungen · übungen
69 words
A Student is a university student and a Schüler is a pupil/student at a primary, secondary or high school. Students attending other types of schools such as language or dancing schools may also be called Schüler.
Careful: a Hochschule is not a high school. Depending on the context, Hochschule is either an umbrella term that comprises Universitäten and Fachhochschulen, or it's a synonym for Fachhochschule.
A Universität is a full research university and a Fachhochschule (often just called Hochschule) is a university with a practical focus that offers Bachelor and Master degrees. PhD programmes may be offered in cooperation with other universities.
In German, the word das Gymnasium refers to a university prep-school.
The German for a sports gym is die Turnhalle (used by schools and sports clubs) or das Fitnessstudio (commercial).
0 words
achtung · analyse · analysen · atmosphäre · atmosphäre · biologie · chemisches · definition · definitionen · element · elemente · elemente · energie · erfindung · erfindungen · gas · gas · kenntnis · kenntnisse · kunststoff · lehrbuch · lehrbücher · maschine · maschinen · maschinen · messe · messen · methode · methoden · misst · motor · motor · nachweis · physik · physik · praktika · praktikum · praktikum · statistik · statistiken · strahlung · strahlung · studie · studien · technik · techniken · temperatur · teste · testen · testest · testet · theorie · wissen · wissenschaft · wissenschaft · wissenschaftlerin
56 words
Normally, nouns don't change the stress pattern when they change into the plural:
Nouns ending in -or are an exception. In the plural, the emphasis lands on the -or- syllable.
0 words
0 words
0 words
0 words
0 words
0 words
0 words
bauch · brustkorb · darm · daumen · daumen · dick · dicke · dicken · därme · dünn · ellbogen · ellbogen · ferse · ferse · fersen · fersen · gehirn · gehirnen · handgelenk · handgelenke · hüfte · hüfte · hüften · kinn · knie · knochen · knochen · knöchel · leber · leber · lippe · lunge · lungen · muskel · muskel · muskeln · oberschenkel · organ · organe · stirn · zeh · zehen · zehen
43 words
The words das Gehirn und das Hirn are used more or less interchangeably in German.
0 words
gefühl · gefühl · gefühle · gefühlen · geist · geist · geister · gleichgewicht · gleichgewicht · glücklich · hoffnung · hoffnung · leben · leben · leben · leben · lebens · meditiere · meditieren · meditierst · meditiert · schicksal · seele · seele · seelen · sinn · sinne · sinne · spiritualität · wahrheit · wunder · wunderbar · wunderschön · wunderschöne
34 words
Due to its use as a loanword in English, wunderbar is often overused by English-speaking learners of German. Contrary to popular opinion, most Germans don't run around in leather trousers, smiling broadly and shouting Wunderbar! at each other :)
Think of it as the equivalent to "splendid!". If you want to sound less antiquated, better use Super! or Toll! or something like that.
0 words
betrag · finanzierung · frist · fristen · konten · konto · kreditkarte · kreditkarten · münze · münzen · rechnung · rechnung · zahlung · zahlung · zahlungen · zinsen · zinsen
17 words
Most nouns in German for the plural by appending an ending. There might be an umlaut change.
A few loanwords will instead replace the singular ending with a different one:
You will learn more of these in the skill "Business 2".
0 words
angebot · angebot · angebote · antrag · anträge · anzeige · anzeigen · auftrag · auftrag · ausgabe · ausgabe · ausgaben · ausgaben · bedarf · betrieb · betrieb · betriebe · bewertung · bewertung · bezahlung · branche · branchen · börse · börse · chance · chancen · dienstleistung · dienstleistungen · einzelhandel · firma · garantie · gründung · gründung · industrie · industrie · industrien · kundenservice · kundenservice · lager · lager · leistung · leistungen · leistungen · lieferung · logistik · marke · messe · produktion · produktion · service · stellenangebot · stellenangebote · tabelle · tabellen · verhandele · verhandeln · verhandelt · verkauf · versicherung · ware · waren · werbung · werbung
63 words
Most nouns in German get their plural by attaching an ending. There might be an umlaut change:
A few nouns (from Ancient Greek and Latin) will instead replace a singular ending with a different plural ending:
0 words
0 words
0 words
0 words
atheist · atheisten · bete · beten · betest · betet · buddhismus · buddhismus · christ · christen · glaube · gott · gott · gottes · götter · heilig · heilige · hinduismus · islam · jude · juden · juden · kirche · kirche · kirchen · kirchen · moscheen · muslim · muslime · mönch · mönche · priester · religion · religionen · religionen · synagogen · tempel · tod · wiedergeburt · wiedergeburt
40 words
0 words
allein · außerdem · bereits · besonders · dabei · daher · damit · darüber · dazu · durchaus · einmal · erneut · genauso · jedenfalls · jedoch · kaum · meistens · mindestens · nun · selber · selbst · sonst · sowohl · völlig · weder · zuerst · zuletzt · überhaupt
28 words
There are two words spelled damit in German.
One is a combination of a pronoun and a preposition (da+mit). It means "with that".
This word is generally emphasized on the first syllable. As any standard sentence element, if it is used in the first position, the subject will have to go after the verb (which has to be in position 2).
The other is a subordinating conjunction. It translates to "so that":
Because it creates a subordinate clause, the verb of that clause has to go to the end. This version of damit is pronounced at the second syllable.
To remember which is which, remember that the one that's emphasized at the end also sends the verb to the end.
There are at least three ways to express a goal.
The easiest just takes a simple verb:
The verb becomes a noun here, hence the upper-case initial, and the zum (zu+dem) preposition. If a verb turns into a noun, it always gets neuter gender (das Essen, das Lachen).
If you have a more complicated verb complex (for example, with adverbs or objects), you cannot use zum. Use um … zu … instead:
To do this, you start with an infinitive construction:
If you were to use this in a sentence, it would look like this:
The um goes to the beginning of the infinitive construction. The zu goes where the verb part (in the above example, kaufen) splits off.
If your main sentence has a different subject than your goal, you can't use an infinitive. Use damit, which comes with a subordinate clause.
Read the section "damit vs. damit" for more information on how to use it.
Many prepositions can be combined with wo- and da-. Da roughly translates to "that" here, wo normally to "what" (not "where" which is its normal meaning).
| wo- | da- |
|---|---|
| woran | daran |
| worauf | darauf |
| woraus | daraus |
| wobei | dabei |
| wodurch | dadurch |
| wofür | dafür |
| wogegen | dagegen |
| wohinter | dahinter |
| worin | darin |
| womit | damit |
| wonach | danach |
| worum | darum |
| worüber | darüber |
| worunter | darunter |
| wovon | davon |
| wovor | davor |
| wozu | dazu |
| wozwischen | dazwischen |
If the preposition starts with a vowel, there will be a binding r. So worum is pronounced wo-rum (not wor-um).
0 words
0 words
0 words
0 words
0 words
0 words
0 words
amt · anspruch · anspruch · ansprüche · bundesregierung · bundesregierung · bundesrepublik · freiheit · korrupt · polizei · protestieren · protestiert · rat · rat · reich · steuer · steuern · strategie · umfrage · umfrage · umfragen · urteil · urteil · veranstaltung · veranstaltungen · verband · verbände · vereinbarung · vereinbarung · wirtschaft
30 words
0 words
asien · australien · china · europäisch · europäische · indien · kontinent · nordamerika · nordpol · polen · pyramide · pyramiden · russland · russland · südamerika · südpol · türkei · türkei · ägypten · ägypten
20 words
Welcome to the last lesson of this course!
We hope you got a good first impression on how German works and thinks. But your journey should not end here :) Find other speakers, get some learning material, and/or keep using this course.
Wir wünschen dir alles Gute!
Welcome to the German course! We will provide you with tips and notes throughout the course. However, be aware that these are optional. Only read them when you feel stuck, or when you are interested in the details. You can use the course without them.
Often, it's best to just dive into the practice. See how it goes! You can always revisit the Notes section later on.
In German, all nouns are capitalized. For example, "my name" is mein Name, and "the apple" is der Apfel. This helps you identify which words are the nouns in a sentence.
Nouns in German are either feminine, masculine or neuter. For example, Frau (woman) is feminine, Mann (man) is masculine, and Kind (child) is neuter.
While some nouns (Frau, Mann, …) have natural gender like in English (a woman is female, a man is male), most nouns have grammatical gender (depends on word ending, or seemingly random).
For example, Mädchen (girl) is neuter, because all words ending in -chen are neuter. Wasser (water) is neuter, but Cola is feminine, and Saft (juice) is masculine.
It is important to learn every noun along with its gender because parts of German sentences change depending on the gender of their nouns.
For now, just remember that the indefinite article (a/an) ein is used for masculine and neuter nouns, and eine is used for feminine nouns. Stay with us to find out how "cases" will later modify these.
| gender | indefinite article |
|---|---|
| masculine | ein Mann |
| neuter | ein Mädchen |
| feminine | eine Frau |
Verb conjugation in German is more complex than in English. To conjugate a regular verb in the present tense, identify the stem of the verb and add the ending corresponding to any of the grammatical persons, which you can simply memorize. For now, here are the singular forms:
Example: trinken (to drink)
| English person | ending | German example |
|---|---|---|
| I | -e | ich trinke |
| you (singular informal) | -st | du trinkst |
| he/she/it | -t | er/sie/es trinkt |
Like in English, sein (to be) is completely irregular, and its conjugations simply need to be memorized. Again, you will learn the plural forms soon.
| English | German |
|---|---|
| I am | ich bin |
| you (singular informal) are | du bist |
| he/she/it is | er/sie/es ist |
Umlauts are letters (more specifically vowels) that have two dots above them and appear in some German words like Mädchen.
Literally, "Umlaut" means "around the sound," because its function is to change how the vowel sounds.
| no umlaut | umlaut |
|---|---|
| a | ä |
| o | ö |
| u | ü |
An umlaut change may change the meaning. That's why it's important not to ignore those little dots.
If you can't type these, a workaround is to type "oe" instead of "ö", for example.
In German, there's no continuous aspect. There are no separate forms for "I drink" and "I am drinking". There's only one form: Ich trinke.
There's no such thing as Ich bin trinke or Ich bin trinken!
When translating into English, how can I tell whether to use the simple (I drink) or the continuous form (I am drinking)?
Unless the context suggests otherwise, either form should be accepted.
These tips will guide you through the course. The course is designed so you can discover German without resorting to grammar notes. However, if you feel lost, you can check these notes, they will clarify things.
Always play first! In language learning, practice counts more than theory.
If you have questions about a specific sentence, refer to sentence discussions. You can either already find answers there, or state your own question.
The bubbles in the main view are called skills, the whole course is called a tree. Each skill is divided into several lessons.
The most important thing in learning is that you relax and enjoy yourself. With this course, you can explore German in a playful way. Don't worry too much about remembering things. Your brain will do that for you, as long as you're having fun and keep your eyes and ears open.
In this skill, you learn the following things:
German can be very similar to English.
Plural forms are kind of irregular. Think "foot/feet" or "child/children". There are patterns; you will discover them while you master this course. For example, nouns ending in -e always have a plural ending in -en.
As in English, "to be" is highly irregular.
Soon you will discover that gender works differently than in English. In this skill, we only show you "feminine" nouns. Keep that in mind when later on, you encounter words from the two other genders.
But wait, why is "Katze" feminine? My cat is a guy! — Yes, did we mention that gender works differently than in English? :) Katze is die (feminine) because the word ends in an -e. Check out the next skill for more on this!
As mentioned in Basics 1, German nouns have one of three genders: feminine, masculine or neuter.
While they sometimes correspond to a natural gender ("der Mann" is male), most often the gender will depend on the word, not on the object it describes. For example, the word "das Mädchen" (the girl) ends in "-chen", hence it is neuter. This is called grammatical gender.
Each gender has its own definite article. Der is used for masculine nouns, das for neuter, and die for feminine. Later in this course you will learn that these might be modified according to "case".
| gender | definite (the) | indefinite (a/an) |
|---|---|---|
| masculine | der Mann | ein Mann |
| neuter | das Mädchen | ein Mädchen |
| feminine | die Frau | eine Frau |
Here are the conjugation tables from "Basics 1" (where you can find a more detailed explanation) again.
trinken (to drink)
| English person | ending | German example |
|---|---|---|
| I | -e | ich trinke |
| you (singular informal) | -st | du trinkst |
| he/she/it | -t | er/sie/es trinkt |
sein (to be)
| English | German |
|---|---|
| I am | ich bin |
| you (singular informal) are | du bist |
| he/she/it is | er/sie/es ist |
Just like in English, using or dropping the definite article makes the difference between specific and generic.
I like bread = Ich mag Brot (bread in general)
I like the bread = Ich mag das Brot (specific bread)
A good general rule is to use an article when you would use one in English. If there is none in English, don't use one in German.
There are some slight differences when using a few abstract nouns, but we'll see about that later.
In the previous lesson, you learned the singular forms of some modal verbs:
| ich | kann | mag |
| du | kannst | magst |
| er/sie | kann | kann |
In the plural, these verbs have regular endings. They often use a different vowel than the singular forms:
| wir | können | mögen |
| sie | können | mögen |
In German, every verb has an infinitive form (similar to "to learn" in English). The first and third person plural are always the same:
| learn | drive | have | |
|---|---|---|---|
| infinitive | lernen | fahren | haben |
| wir | lernen | fahren | haben |
| sie | lernen | fahren | haben |
Here is a revision of the singular forms:
| learn | drive | have | |
|---|---|---|---|
| ich | lerne | fahre | habe |
| du | lernst | fährst | hast |
| er/sie/es | lernt | fährt | hat |
So far, you learned how to say "my, your, his, her":
| Engl. | fem./pl. | masc. Nom./neut. | masc. Akk. |
|---|---|---|---|
| my | meine | mein | meinen |
| your (sg.) | deine | dein | deinen |
| his/its | seine | sein | seinen |
| her/their | ihre | ihr | ihren |
Remember that the endings are the same as for "ein" and "kein":
| Engl. | fem./pl. | masc. Nom./neut. | masc. Akk. |
|---|---|---|---|
| a(n) | eine | ein | einen |
| no | keine | kein | keinen |
"Their" is the same as "her" in German, and "its" the same as "his".
If you find these hard to remember, just keep practicing! Why not revisit some of the earlier skills, too?
In addition, you learn "our" and "your (plural)" here:
| Engl. | fem./pl. | masc. Nom./neut. | masc. Akk. |
|---|---|---|---|
| our | unsere | unser | unseren |
| your (pl.) | eure | euer | euren |
| their | ihre | ihr | ihren |
Notice that "euer" loses an "e" when it gets a suffix.
Again, instead of trying to memorize tables, it is best to just jump into practice, and use them until you get a feeling for them.
By now, you encountered the numbers from one to twelve:
| 1 | eins | 7 | sieben | |
| 2 | zwei | 8 | acht | |
| 3 | drei | 9 | neun | |
| 4 | vier | 10 | zehn | |
| 5 | fünf | 11 | elf | |
| 6 | sechs | 12 | zwölf |
Notice that they are very similar to the numbers in English.
These numbers never change form, apart from number one. Eins is only used when nothing comes after it:
As mentioned in the last skill, gender works differently than in English. English has natural gender:
Some words in German are like this:
However, most nouns use grammatical gender.
Often, it is the noun ending that determines the "gender":
Things (as opposed to living being or ideas) ending in -e are almost always feminine (she):
Nouns ending in -er are often masculine (he):
Nouns ending in -chen are always neuter (it).
There are more patterns like this. You will encounter them later in the course.
However, for many common nouns, the endings got lost over time; so for these, you will need to memorize the gender.
In English, you have "a(n)" (the indefinite article) and "the" (the definite article), and that's it.
In German, these can be quite variable, depending on context.
Feminine (she) nouns use eine for "a(n)":
Possessive pronouns ("my, your, …") use the same endings:
There is also the special kein, which roughly works like "not a" in English:
For "the", feminine nouns use "die" in German:
Plural endings often look like feminine forms:
Of course, as for English "a(n)", there is no plural for eine; it means "one"!
The other two genders share the same indefinite article ("a(n)"): they use ein.
Again, possessive pronouns ("my, your, …") and some other words will use the same form.
All genders are the same in plural:
Here is a quick overview of the forms you you will practice in this and the next skills:
| English | fem. | plural | not fem. |
|---|---|---|---|
| a(n) | eine | — | ein |
| my | meine | meine | mein |
| your | deine | deine | dein |
| no | keine | keine | kein |
As mentioned in the last skill, German plurals are rather irregular. Here are some forms you will encounter in this skill:
| singular | plural |
|---|---|
| eine Lampe | Lampen |
| eine Tochter | Töchter |
| ein Bett | Betten |
| ein Sofa | Sofas |
| ein Stuhl | Stühle |
| ein Computer | Computer |
As you can see, sometimes it's simple:
Sometimes the vowel will slightly change (think "foot/feet").
A few nouns (mostly ending in -er) don't change at all in the plural. For these, you need to look at the context (for example the verb form) to know which one is which.
Don't worry about memorizing these now. Just relax, explore, and let German work on you for a while :)
German pronunciation is pretty straightforward: unlike in English, a letter will normally always be pronounced in the same way.
However, some letters have different sounds than in English. We will remind you of these throughout the course; just try your best to copy what you actually hear for now.
Words from other languages (such as French or English) sometimes sound like the original:
By now, you have encountered some letters that don't exist in English:
ä ö ü — These are vowels that do not sound like a o u. They are called "umlauts". A workaround for people without English keyboard is to write "ae oe ue" instead.
ß — this is not a B, but rather a special kind of S. One name for it is "es-zett". Swiss people (and people writing on a non-German keyboard) type "ss" instead.
In English, making plurals out of singular nouns is typically as straightforward as adding -(e)s at the end of the word. In German, the transformation is more complex. You will learn details about this in a later lesson.
In some languages (such as French or Spanish), genders are also differentiated in the plural. In German, the plural form does not depend on what gender the singular form is.
Regardless of grammatical gender, all plural nouns take the definite article die (You will later learn how "cases" can modify this). This does not make them feminine. The grammatical gender of a word never changes. Like many other words, die is simply used for multiple purposes.
Just like in English, there's no plural indefinite article.
| English | German |
|---|---|
| a man | ein Mann |
| men | Männer |
Most languages use different words to address one person, or several people.
In German, when addressing a single person, use du:
If you are talking to more than one person, use ihr:
Some English speakers would use "y'all" or "you guys" for this plural form of "you".
Note that these only work for people you are familiar with (friends, family, …). For others, you would use the formal "you", which we teach later in this course. So stay tuned :)
If you're new to German, ihr and er may sound confusingly similar, but there is actually a difference. ihr sounds similar to the English word "ear", and er sounds similar to the English word "air" (imagine a British/RP accent).
Don't worry if you can't pick up on the difference at first. You may need some more listening practice before you can tell them apart. Also, try using headphones instead of speakers.
Learn the pronouns together with the verb endings. This will greatly reduce the amount of ambiguity.
Here is the complete table for conjugating regular verbs:
Example: trinken (to drink)
| English person | ending | German example |
|---|---|---|
| I | -e | ich trinke |
| you (singular informal) | -st | du trinkst |
| he/she/it | -t | er/sie/es trinkt |
| we | -en | wir trinken |
| you (plural informal) | -t | ihr trinkt |
| they | -en | sie trinken |
Notice that the first and the third person plural have the same ending.
And here's the complete table for the irregular verb sein (to be):
| English | German |
|---|---|
| I am | ich bin |
| you (singular informal) are | du bist |
| he/she/it is | er/sie/es ist |
| we are | wir sind |
| you (plural informal) are | ihr seid |
| they are | sie sind |
You will learn about the distinction between "formal" and "informal" later (it's easy).
Commonly used phrases are often shortened versions of a longer sentence. Or they might be leftovers from some old grammar that has otherwise fallen out of use. That means that their grammar might appear strange.
For now, just learn them like you would learn a long word.
There are many ways to ask someone how they are doing. Take "How are you?," "How do you do?" and "How is it going?" as examples. In German, the common phrase or idiom uses the verb gehen (go): Wie geht es dir? (How are you?).
This can be shortened to Wie geht's?.
In German, Willkommen means welcome as in "Welcome to our home", but it does not mean welcome as in "Thank you - You're welcome". The German for the latter is Gern geschehen (or just Gern!) or Keine Ursache.
Sometimes, German words can be a mouthful. Later on, you will find that you can take long words apart, and recognize the meaning from their elements.
Here's an example:
| Part | Meaning |
|---|---|
| ent- | de- |
| Schuld | guilt |
| -ig | -y |
| -gung | noun suffix |
So, Entschuldigung literally means something like "deguiltification": "Take the guilt away from me" :)
Duo is the name of Duolingo's mascot (the green owl). He will guide you through this course. If you make him happy, he will make you happy :)
While German sentence structure is often similar to English, there are some differences.
One essential feature is the sentence bracket. Like in English, one part of the verb changes with the person:
This part generally goes into position 2 of the sentence.
| 1 | 2 | … |
|---|---|---|
| Ich | bin | hier. |
| Meine Mutter | ist | in Irland. |
The "rest" of the verb goes to the very end. In this skill, you will encounter elements that "kind of belong" to the verb. They complement the verb: The verb feels incomplete without them. They are thus called complement. These go to the very end of the sentence:
| 1 | 2 | … | end |
|---|---|---|---|
| Meine Mutter | ist | … | in Irland. |
| Ich | trinke | … | Tee. |
By that logic, everything else has to go between the verb in position 2 and the complement:
| 1 | 2 | … | end |
|---|---|---|---|
| Meine Mutter | ist | oft | in Irland. |
| Ich | trinke | oft | Tee. |
This is one of the most common points of confusion for new learners. Always pay attention to the sentence structure. Some combinations that are perfectly fine in English are impossible in German.
Compare these two English sentences:
| 1 | 2 | … | end |
|---|---|---|---|
| You | are | old. | |
| — | Are | you | old? |
The first (verb in position 2) is a statement. The second (verb in position 1) is a yes/no question.
German works the same way, for all verbs:
| 1 | 2 | … | end |
|---|---|---|---|
| Du | bist | alt. | |
| — | Bist | du | alt? |
| Du | trinkst | Kaffee. | |
| — | Trinkst | du | Kaffee? |
Note that here, English is more complicated, requiring a "do" construct for most verbs:
In English, the verb endings change for the third person singular:
In German, more persons have their own ending. For du (singular you), this ending will be the same for all verbs. Whenever you see du, the verb will end in -st:
Du heißt looks like an exception, but isn't. The reason is that the strange ß character actually represents an S already: There will never be an -s- after a ß.
In the skill You, you learned that du always goes with -st:
In the same way, ich (I) normally has an -e ending to go with:
This is not completely regular, but works for most verbs. Work on getting the verb endings right, your German will sound a bit weird to native speakers if you don't :)
By now, you have encountered keine/kein and nicht. These are often confusing for new learners.
Generally, kein works like ein (has the same ending changes), and can be thought of as not a:
In contrast, nicht works like not:
There are some situations when it's tricky to say which one is correct, but most often, the following rule helps you out: If you would say not a or no in English, use kein. If you only can say not, use nicht.
Of course, no as in No, I am not sleeping is nein in German.
Remember that in German, gender works different than in English. Many nouns have a certain gender because of what the noun looks like (often an ending). It has nothing to do with actual gender.
However, for people, the gender generally (not always) corresponds to the person's gender. There is normally a male and a female version. The female version often has an -in ending:
As mentioned before, German has four letters that do not exist in English:
Most mobile keyboards provide these when long-pressing a, o, u, and s, respectively.
If you cannot find them, you can always replace these with the following letter combinations:
By now, you know all the regular verb endings for singular verbs:
| English | Ending | Example |
|---|---|---|
| I | -e | ich singe |
| You (singular) | -st | du singst |
| She/He | -t | sie/er singt |
As in English, "to be" is highly irregular:
| English | Form |
|---|---|
| I | ich bin |
| You (singular) | du bist |
| She/He | sie/er ist |
Be sure to practice these enough, this will improve your German a lot later on!
As you have noticed, articles are not as simple as in English. Among other things, they correspond to the "gender" of a noun. Remember that this gender does normally not refer to the real "gender" of something, it is just one of three noun classes.
| English | feminine | plural | masculine |
|---|---|---|---|
| she/they/he | sie | sie | er |
| the | die | die | der |
| this | diese | diese | dieser |
| which | welche | welche | welcher |
| mine | meine | meine | meiner |
| yours | deine | deine | deiner |
If you want, compare these with the similar endings for "a(n)" and related words:
| English | feminine | plural | not feminine |
|---|---|---|---|
| a(n) | eine | — | ein |
| my | meine | meine | mein |
| your | deine | deine | dein |
| not a | keine | keine | kein |
We mentioned earlier that "words for things" are feminine (die) when they end in -e:
This does not necessarily extend to nouns that are for abstract concepts, people, or animals. Hence, they may not be feminine.
Junge (boy) and Chinese (Chinese man) are masculine. The reason is simple: They are actually male!
For abstract ideas (not things, not people), the genders for -e nouns are all over the place: Name is also masculine, while Ende (end) is neuter. However, your best bet is still feminine (die)!
Yes, we do make mistakes! If you find one, please report it. Use the "flag" symbol for this. If you only report in the sentence discussions, we (the course maintainers) might not see it.
Also, please double-check first. We get literally thousands of reports every day. More than 99% of them do not report actual errors. Course maintenance is done by volunteers, so here you can do your part :)
Remember that German has a peculiar, consistent sentence structure:
Auch goes between the first and the second part of the verb:
| 1 | 2 | rest | end |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ich | komme | auch | aus Japan. |
It can not go to the very end, because that would violate German sentence structure.
Generally, think of sondern as not A, but B instead:
In other contexts, use aber:
In English, the words "he" and "I" can be used as subjects (the ones doing the action in a sentence), and they change to "him" and "me" when they are objects (the ones the action is applied to). Here's an example:
| Subject | Verb | Object |
|---|---|---|
| I | see | him |
| He | sees | me |
This is called a grammatical case: the same word changes its form, depending on its relationship to the verb. In English, only pronouns have cases. In German, most words other than verbs (such as nouns, pronouns, determiners, adjectives, etc.) have cases.
You'll learn more about cases later; for now you just need to understand the difference between the two simplest cases: nominative and accusative.
The subject of a sentence (the one doing the action) is in the nominative case. So when we say Die Frau spielt. (The woman plays.), "die Frau" is in the nominative.
The accusative object is the thing or person that is directly receiving the action. For example, in Der Mann sieht den Ball. (The man sees the ball.), der Mann is the (nominative) subject and den Ball is the (accusative) object.
For the articles, nominative and accusative are nearly the same. Only the masculine ("der") forms change:
| "a(n)" | masc. | neut. | fem. |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nominative | ein | ein | eine |
| Accusative | einen | ein | eine |
| "the" | m. | n. | f. | pl. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nom. | der | das | die | die |
| Acc. | den | das | die | die |
The fact that most words in German are affected by the case explains why the sentence order is more flexible than in English. For example, you can say Das Mädchen hat den Apfel. (The girl has the apple.) or Den Apfel hat das Mädchen.. In both cases, den Apfel (the apple) is the accusative object, and das Mädchen is the subject (always nominative).
However, take note that in German, the verb always has to be in position 2. If something other than the subject takes up position 1, the subject will then move after the verb.
A few common verbs change the vowel in the second and third person singular.
Here is the table for a verb without vowel change:
| En. person | person | trinken |
|---|---|---|
| I | ich | trinke |
| you (sg.) | du | trinkst |
| he/she/it | er/sie/es | trinkt |
| we | wir | trinken |
| you (pl.) | ihr | trinkt |
| they | sie | trinken |
And here are three verbs with that vowel change. Notice that in the first two verbs, the 2nd and 3rd person singular seem the same. This is just because the du ending -st merged with the -s- of the verb stem. This is unrelated to the vowel change.
| person | lesen | sprechen |
|---|---|---|
| ich | lese | spreche |
| du | liest | sprichst |
| er/sie/es | liest | spricht |
| wir | lesen | sprechen |
| ihr | lest | sprecht |
| sie | lesen | sprechen |
Similarly, essen turns to du isst/er isst.
Sprechen (to speak) will be introduced in one of the next lessons.
Isst and ist sound exactly the same. So do Es ist ein Apfel. and Es isst ein Apfel. sound the same?
Yes, but you can tell it's Es ist ein Apfel: Es isst ein Apfel is ungrammatical. The accusative of ein Apfel is einen Apfel. Hence, It is eating an apple translates as Es isst einen Apfel.
Of course, this only works for masculine nouns. Other forms will look the same in nominative and accusative:
Only context will tell you here :)
In English, you can say "I'm having bread" when you really mean that you're eating or about to eat bread. This does not work in German. The verb haben refers to possession only. Hence, the sentence Ich habe Brot only translates to I have bread, not I'm having bread. Of course, the same applies to drinks. Ich habe Wasser only translates to I have water, not I'm having water.
Conjugation is also slightly irregular: two forms lose the -b-.
| English person | German example |
|---|---|
| I | ich habe |
| you (sg.) | du hast |
| he/she/it | er/sie/es hat |
| we | wir haben |
| you (pl.) | ihr habt |
| they | sie haben |
Remember that German has two ways of expressing "you" (singular and plural)?
Surprise! There is a third form, usually used with people you don't know well. German just uses the third person plural for this (they):
| person | trinken |
|---|---|
| du | trinkst |
| ihr | trinkt |
| sie/Sie | trinken |
How to know whether the meaning is "they" or "you"? German writes the "you" forms in upper case.
Of course, at the beginning of the sentence, this does not work. It can then mean both:
When using the polite form, you usually combine it with the last name of a person, and Herr/Frau:
As mentioned earlier, sometimes a noun endings gives away the gender:
A common way to turn a verb into a noun is to add -ung to the word stem. These nouns will always be feminine:
Later on, you will learn more of these regular noun endings.
In German, you just add the quantity before the noun:
Willkommen only means welcome as a greeting. It will not mean you're welcome.
As in English, you can use the present tense to talk about the present and the future:
Also as in English, the past requires a different tense. Here, you learn how to say "I was":
The endings are like those of the modal verbs (müssen, können, …). But the stem never changes:
| Person | sein (to be) | können (can) |
|---|---|---|
| ich | war | kann |
| du | warst | kannst |
| er/sie/es | war | kann |
| wir | waren | können |
| ihr | wart | könnt |
| sie/Sie | waren | können |
Many learners of German struggle with expressing where they went:
Germany is actually simpler here: it just uses ich war:
Previously, you learned that articles and similar words change according to gender and number. For all words in the following table, feminine and plural forms are the same.
| English | fem. / pl. | masculine |
|---|---|---|
| she/they • he | sie | er |
| the | die | der |
| this | diese | dieser |
| which | welche | welcher |
| mine | meine | meiner |
| yours | deine | deiner |
There is one more gender (neuter). Here are the corresponding forms, together with masculine for comparison:
| English | masc. | neuter |
|---|---|---|
| he • it | er | es |
| the | der | das |
| this | dieser | dieses |
| which | welcher | welches |
| mine | meiner | meines |
| yours | deiner | deines |
As you see, generally, feminine (and plural) ends in -e, masculine in -er, and neuter in -es.
You actually encountered neuter nouns before:
You probably didn't notice, because the indefinite articles (a(n) in English) are the same for masculine and neuter:
| English | fem. | pl. | masc. / neut. |
|---|---|---|---|
| a(n) | eine | — | ein |
| no | keine | keine | kein |
| my | meine | meine | mein |
| your | deine | deine | dein |
So, there are two groups of article-like words. The first group has endings like the definite article (the), the second like the indefinite article (a(n)). The best way to master these is to practice them a lot!
Yes, we agree :) Here's what you are used to from English ("natural gender"):
Remember that in German, a lot of "gender" is actually determined by the word form, not by what it means ("grammatical gender"). Hence, die Lampe is feminine, because it's a word for a thing, and ends in -e. Der Computer is masculine, because most nouns ending in -er are.
As a general rule, for people, the grammatical gender normally corresponds to the natural gender. For animals and objects, it normally does not.
There are many more of these endings that give away the gender. As mentioned earlier, -chen words are always neuter.
The ending -chen signifies a smaller version of something, similar to -let or so in English (pig/piglet). Magd (maid) used to mean woman long ago, so Mädchen literally means little woman.
The pronoun man works like English one/you:
As in English, the grammar follows er (he):
Of course, man does not imply males only. Think "mankind", not "that man".
There is no new grammar in this lesson. If you're confused, you can review the grammar points from earlier lessons.
Or you can check the discussion that's available for each sentence. You can reach these when tapping or clicking on the speech bubble. Your question might already have been answered there. Otherwise, you can leave a comment yourself.
Remember this important rule of German:
This you already know from English.
In the examples above, you see that the subject ("I", "the man") appears in position 1.
German often puts things other than subjects in position 1. But still the verb will appear in position 2! The subject then has to move behind the verb.
| 1 | 2 | … | end |
|---|---|---|---|
| Er | tanzt | am Freitag. | |
| Am Freitag | tanzt | er. | |
| Ich | schwimme | am Montag | oft. |
| Am Montag | schwimme | ich | oft. |
Most verbs only change the ending. There are a few common verbs that change the main vowel too:
| Person | drive | see | sleep |
|---|---|---|---|
| ich | fahre | sehe | schlafe |
| du | fährst | siehst | schläfst |
| er/sie | fährt | sieht | schläft |
Note that the change happens only for the second and third person (singular only).
In English, you can "go to China by plane".
The German word "gehen" means "to walk" only.
You can't walk by plane, taxi or bus :)
Earlier, you learned that, just as articles, some pronouns change their endings:
| a(n) | my | your | |
|---|---|---|---|
| fem./pl. | eine | meine | deine |
| masc./neut. | ein | mein | dein |
| one | mine | yours | |
|---|---|---|---|
| fem./pl. | eine | meine | deine |
| masc. | einer | meiner | deiner |
| neut. | eines | meines | deines |
In this skill, you encounter two more:
| his/its | her/their | |
|---|---|---|
| masc./neut. | sein | ihr |
| fem./pl. | seine | ihre |
As you see, for these forms, "his" and "its" look the same. So do "her" and "their".
| his/its | hers/theirs | |
|---|---|---|
| fem./pl. | seine | ihre |
| masc. | seiner | ihrer |
| neut. | seines | ihres |
Some learners find this very confusing. "There are two genders within one pronoun!!"
Don't overthink this! As an English speaker, you know the difference between "his" and "her".
English "his" translates to sein, plus ending. English "her" translates to ihr, plus ending.
The ending is determined just like in the other pronouns:
We highly recommend just to keep practicing all the pronouns and articles, and then "his/hers" in German will just fall into place!
This course teaches current standard German.
Currently, mainstream German has not yet found a way to avoid the genderization that is such a central part of European languages. For example, unlike in English ("their") or Swedish ("hen"), there is no gender-neutral pronoun for third person singular in German.
While language is often very conservative (unwilling to change), culture is often much more progressive. This course reflects that. If you are offended by the fact that gay people do not only exist, but are finally a normal part of German life, don't be. We can't change you, but don't try to change reality.
For now, think of im as "inside", and "ins" as "into":
Later on, you will see these are part of a larger pattern.
Im is also used for months and seasons:
So far, you learned these verb forms:
| learn | drive | have | |
|---|---|---|---|
| infinitive | lernen | fahren | haben |
| ich | lerne | fahre | habe |
| du (you sg.) | lernst | fährst | hast |
| er/sie/es | lernt | fährt | hat |
| wir | lernen | fahren | haben |
| sie | lernen | fahren | haben |
Here you learn the form for the last person, "you (plural)".
This form always has a "-t" ending, and the stem of the verb will always be the same as the infinitive. Contrast with the third person singular, where there may be stem changes:
| learn | drive | have | |
|---|---|---|---|
| infinitive | lernen | fahren | haben |
| er/sie/es | lernt | fährt | hat |
| ihr (you pl.) | lernt | fahrt | habt |
In English, you can say:
Previously, you learned "mögen" means "to like":
However, this can only be used with nouns. For verbs, there is a structure that English does not use. It is therefore often confusing for beginners of German.
Gern is an adverb, not a verb. Literally, Germans say "I swim likingly." Here's a tip: If you know where in the sentence to put "oft" (often), you know where to put "gern":
Gern may be written/spoken as gerne, these two forms are exactly the same.
Questions can be asked by switching the subject and verb. For instance, "Du verstehst das." (You understand this) becomes "Verstehst du das?" (Do you understand this?). These kinds of questions will generally just elicit yes/no answers. In English, the main verb "to be" follows the same principle. "I am hungry." becomes "Am I hungry?". In German, all verbs follow this principle. There's no do-support.
Six W-questions - "Wer" (Who), "Was" (What), "Wo" (Where), "Wann" (When), "Warum" (Why) and "Wie" (How) - can be asked in German to elicit more than yes/no answers. Two of the six adverbs are declineable (i.e. change with the case), whereas four are not.
"Wer" is declinable and needs to adjust to the four cases. The adjustment depends on what the question is targeting.
Similar to the changes made to "wer," "was" will decline depending on the four cases.
In German, you can inquire about locations in several ways. "Wo" (where) is the general question word, but if you are asking for a direction in which someone or something is moving, you may use "wohin" (where to). Look at: "Wo ist mein Schuh?" (Where is my shoe?) and "Wohin kommt dieser Wein?" (Where does this wine go?). Furthermore, "Wohin" is separable into "Wo" + "hin." For example, "Wo ist mein Schuh hin?" (Where did my shoe go?).
Note that the sound of "Wer" is similar to "Where" and that of "Wo" to "Who," but they must not be confused. In other words: the two German questions words "Wer" (Who) and "Wo" (Where) are false cognates to English. They mean the opposite of what an English speaker would think.
"Wann" (when) does not change depending on the case. "Wann" can be used with conjunctions such as "seit" (since) or "bis" (till): "Seit wann haben Sie für Herrn Müller gearbeitet?" (Since when have you been working for Mr. Müller?) and "Bis wann geht der Film?" (Till when does the movie last?).
"Warum" (why) is also not declinable. "Wieso" and "Weshalb" can be used instead of "Warum." For an example, take "Warum ist das Auto so alt?" = "Wieso ist das Auto so alt?" = "Weshalb ist das Auto so alt?" (Why is that car so old?).
In English, some verbs can be used in combination with an infinitive:
German is similar:
Did you ever notice the -s (as in he eats) does not appear in he can? In German, too, the first and third person are the same for modal verbs:
| person | modal verb | full verb |
|---|---|---|
| ich | kann | singe |
| du | kannst | singst |
| er/sie | kann | singt |
Mögen (to like) is not a normal modal verb. It can only be used with nouns (or pronouns):
Its singular forms are:
| ich | mag |
| du | magst |
| er / sie | mag |
Machen is a normal verb. It means to make.
However, it's also used where English used to do
They are easily confused by new learners:
Earlier, you learned an important principle of German sentence structure:
This principle is called "sentence bracket".
| 1 | 2 | … | end |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ich | singe | nicht | . |
| Ich | kann | nicht | singen. |
| Ich | kann | am Montag nicht | singen. |
What does this mean for modal verbs?
Many learners find sentence structure hard. Be patient, keep experimenting. At some point, your brain will adapt :)
In English, the pronouns sometimes change:
This is a leftover from a much more detailed ancient "case system".
German uses quite a bit more of this system, as you will see later on. For now, just consider these forms:
| nominative | accusative |
|---|---|
| ich | mich |
| du | dich |
Nominative and accusative are two of these "cases".
Nominative is used for the sentence's subject.
Accusative has several functions. Here it is used as the object of a sentence:
Some prepositions also will require the accusative:
There are other words that will change when they are in the accusative case. The good news is, this only happens for words that are masculine (and of course singular).
This means, that as long as a noun (and its associated words, such as pronouns or articles) are not masculine and singular, nominative and accusative will be the same.
The change for masculine singular is very simple. Just use an -en ending everywhere:
Consistently, the pronoun for he also gets an -n ending:
Wer (who) also changes in accusative: it will always be wen then (regardless of gender):
At the end of a sentence, adjectives do not change their endings:
In front of nouns, they will have endings that go with the gender, and with the case. For now, just remember these rules:
For feminine and plural, add -e:
For masculine/neuter, also add -e, when using der/das:
As a language hack, you might use -e as the default ending, and learn the exceptions later on.
Here's the first exception: if in masculine accusative (den/einen), the adjective also ends in -en
While noun genders might seem random for many words, there are quite a few ways to at least land a likely hit.
For example, many German nouns have some kind of ending, which will always or often come with a particular gender.
Non-living objects that end in -e: these will almost always be feminine (Schokolade, Erdbeere, Orange, Banane, Suppe, …). One of the very few exceptions is der Käse. This also works for many, but not all animals (die Katze, Ente, Spinne, Biene, Fliege, …).
Nouns beginning with Ge- are often neuter. This is the only prefix determining gender. (das Gemüse, …)
There are many more endings like these. You will learn more about them throughout this course.
Unlike English, German has two similar but different verbs for "to eat": essen and fressen. The latter is the standard way of expressing that an animal is eating something. Be careful not to use fressen to refer to humans – this would be a serious insult. Assuming you care about politeness, we will not accept your solutions if you use fressen with human subjects.
The most common way to express that a human being is eating something is the verb essen. It is not wrong to use it for animals as well, so we will accept both solutions. But we strongly recommend you accustom yourself to the distinction between essen and fressen.
Fortunately, both verbs have the same conjugation:
| essen | fressen (for animals) |
|---|---|
| ich esse | ich fresse |
| du isst | du frisst |
| er/sie/es isst | er/sie/es frisst |
| wir essen | wir fressen |
| ihr esst | ihr fresst |
| sie essen | sie fressen |
For English every, German uses jeder. However, its ending changes like "der, die, das":
| gender, case | the | every |
|---|---|---|
| masc. Nom. | der | jeder |
| neut. Nom/Akk. | das | jedes |
| fem. Nom./Akk. | die | jede |
| masc. Akk. | den | jeden |
| m/n Dativ | dem | jedem |
| fem. Dativ | der | jeder |
Times are in accusative in German:
Predicate adjectives, i.e. adjectives that don't precede a noun, are not inflected.
As you can see, the adjective remains in the base form, regardless of number and gender.
"D'uh", you say? Keep digging into the German skills tree, and you will soon find the deeper reality of German adjectives :)
There are different ways to negate expressions in German (much like in English you can use "no" in some cases, and "does not" in others). The German adverb nicht (not) is used very often, but sometimes you need to use kein (not a). Kein will be taught in a later lesson.
Use nicht in the following situations:
Nicht negates a noun that has a definite article:
Nicht negates a noun that has a possessive pronoun:
When negating a verb, use nicht.
Why does the nicht appear at the end here?
Refer to the section "Position of nicht" below to find the answer.
Nicht appears before an adverb or adverbial phrase:
When an adjective is part of a verb, also use nicht.
The infinitive here is hungrig sein (to be hungry).
Adverbs end up in different places in different languages. You cannot simply place the German adverb nicht where you would put "not" in English.
The general rule is:
Nicht appears before the item it negates.
So, what about Ich trinke nicht?
Consider this English sentence:
The verb would be "wake up", the infinitive "to wake up". English keeps its verb elements close together. German, on the other hand, has a peculiar sentence structure:
The infinitive here is auf|wachen. German will normally put the last element of the infinitive (the part that changes with the person) in position 2 of the sentence. Everything else will end up at the very end. The rest of the sentence (for example, adverbs), will appear between this "sentence bracket".
Here's a longer example:
Infinitive: mit Freunden ins Restaurant gehen (to go to the restaurant with friends)
Ich gehe mit Freunden ins Restaurant.
If you're confused now, don't worry :) This will become clearer as you get lots of practice throughout this course.
Why are we telling you this here? This bracket is the reason nicht might end up at the end of a sentence.
Consider these examples:
This skill contains both negative and positive statements.
As mentioned earlier, as in English, "sein" (to be) is highly irregular. Here are the complete verb forms for the present tense:
| to be | sein | |
| I | ich | bin |
| you (sg.) | du | bist |
| he/she/it | er/sie/es | ist |
| we | wir | sind |
| you (pl.) | ihr | seid |
| they | sie | sind |
Note that the first and third person plural are still the same.
As mentioned earlier, modal verbs have their own rule set.
They often have a different vowel in singular than in plural.
Also, the first and third person singular are the same.
| person | can |
|---|---|
| ich | kann |
| du | kannst |
| er/sie/es | kann |
| wir | können |
| ihr | könnt |
| sie | können |
As in English, they are usually combined with an infinitive form:
The imperative for plural is easy:
As in English, just omit the pronoun.
The word ihr has several functions in German:
| her | ihr Bier (her beer) |
| their | ihr Bier (their beer) |
| you (pl.) | ihr trinkt (you guys drink) |
Don't worry too much about this, context normally shows you which one is which.
Finden can just mean "to find":
It is also used to express opinions:
Note that the object is in the accusative case.
Learn tut mir leid like one word, the grammar is irregular. It roughly corresponds to English "I am sorry", meaning that you feel regret or empathy.
When asking a yes/no question in English, you would say:
German will not use "do" here. We will switch subject and verb for all verbs.
This skill contains both questions and statements.
Remember that the ending for articles, pronouns and adjectives is -n in dative plural:
In addition, plural nouns that do not end in -n already will also get an -n:
As you can see above, -s plural endings break this rule.
Remember that in German, there's no continuous aspect, i.e. there are no separate forms for "I drink" and "I am drinking". There's only one form: Ich trinke.
There's no such thing as Ich bin trinke or Ich bin trinken!
Here again is the complete table for conjugating regular verbs:
Example: gehen (to go)
| English person | German example |
|---|---|
| I | ich gehe |
| you (sg. informal) | du gehst |
| he/she/it | er/sie/es geht |
| we | wir gehen |
| you (pl. informal) | ihr geht |
| they | sie gehen |
Notice that the 1st and the 3rd person plural have the same ending.
The -h- in gehen tells you that the -e- before it will have a "long" pronunciation. It is not pronounced!
A few common verbs change the vowel in the second and third person singular.
Normally the vowel will change:
| person | schlafen | sehen |
|---|---|---|
| ich | schlafe | sehe |
| du | schläfst | siehst |
| er/sie/es | schläft | sieht |
| wir | schlafen | sehen |
| ihr | schlaft | seht |
| sie | schlafen | sehen |
Other verbs in this skill are
In addition, when a verb stem ends in -s, second and third person singular forms will look the same:
This is because the -s- from du …-st and the -s from the verb stem merge.
Wollen (to want) and mögen (to like) follow a different conjugation system:
| English | pronoun | wollen | mögen |
|---|---|---|---|
| I want/like | ich | will | mag |
| you (sg. inf.) | du | willst | magst |
| he/she/it | er/sie/es | will | mag |
| we | wir | wollen | mögen |
| you (pl. inf.) | ihr | wollt | mögt |
| they | sie | wollen | mögen |
Notice that here, the first and third person are the same (plural and singular). The vowel in singular is different from the vowel in plural.
Use the verb mögen to express that you like something or someone.
Mögen cannot be used for verbs!
In a later lesson, you will learn to use the adverb gern(e) to express that you like doing* something.
(The similar verb möchten can be followed by a verb, but Ich möchte Fußball spielen translates as "I would like to play soccer", not "I like playing soccer".)
Ich mag Bier. (I like beer.)
Sie mag Katzen. (She likes cats.)
Wir mögen dich. (We like you.)
Ihr mögt Bücher. (You like books.)
The German for "the lake" is der See (masculine) and the most commonly used word for "the sea" is das Meer (neuter).
There's another slightly less commonly used word for "the sea": die See (feminine).
Be careful not to confuse der See (the lake) and die See (the sea). Remember that when you learn a noun, you should always learn the gender with it.
| singular | (masc.: "lake") | (fem.: "sea") |
|---|---|---|
| nominative | der See | die See |
| accusative | den See | die See |
The plural forms are identical (only the plural of der See is commonly used).
| plural | (masc.: "lakes") | (fem.: "seas") |
|---|---|---|
| nominative | die Seen | die Seen |
| accusative | die Seen | die Seen |
There are not many noun pairs like this in German. Here is the most extreme example, with plural forms:
Kaufen is normally used in the meaning of "to buy":
Einkaufen is normally used without an object, and often refers to shopping. It can be used in conjunction with gehen:
Verkaufen means "to sell". The prefix ver- is often associated with an "away" notion.
A variety of words exist for "shop". These are two common ones, with roughly exchangeable usage.
The word Sehenswürdigkeit (sight as in sightseeing) is made up of several meaningful parts: sehen + s + würdig + keit.
Let's look at each part and its meaning.
| Part | Meaning |
|---|---|
| sehen | to see |
| -s- | connecting element |
| würdig | to be worthy |
| -keit | noun suffix |
Literally Sehenswürdigkeit means something which is worthy to see.
The connecting element -s- is used to link words together.
The ending -keit turns an adjective into a noun.
Often the ending of a compound noun is a good indicator for the gender of the noun. For example, if a noun ends in -keit, it will always be feminine (die).
Just like in English there's "holidays" and "vacation", in German there are Ferien and Urlaub. They can be used interchangeably to some extent.
Ferien only exists as a plural noun:
Urlaub only exists as a singular noun:
In English, you need "a visa". In German, the singular is das Visum, Visa is the plural (as it is in Latin, the source language of this word).
Der Weg (with a long -e-) roughly means "the path".
The word weg (with a short, open -e-) roughly means "away". Here are some examples:
There is a large number of verbs that end in -ieren. These are usually actions. Often, you can just look at the word stem (before -ieren) and guess the meaning from English:
This group is completely regular: all verbs in this group will behave in the same way. They differ from other verbs in one way: regardless of how long the verb is, the -ie- part will always carry the stress:
Remember that numbers don't change endings in German. The single exception is eins (one).
When used on its own, say eins. In combination with nouns, the -s gets lost, and there might be additional ending changes.
A pronoun is a word that represents a noun, like er does for der Mann. In the nominative case, the personal pronouns are simply the grammatical persons you already know: ich, du, er/sie/es, wir, ihr, and sie.
German uses possessive pronouns similar to the English ones. For example "my" is mein in German, "his" is sein, and "her" is ihr.
| personal pronouns | possessive pronouns |
|---|---|
| ich | mein |
| du | dein |
| er/es | sein |
| sie (feminine) | ihr |
| wir | unser |
| ihr | euer |
| sie (plural) | ihr |
Remember that in German, eu sounds like "boy", and the ending -er normally roughly sounds like "ma".
Unlike English, these possessive pronouns change their endings in the same way as the indefinite article ein.
This is mostly straightforward (just append the correct ending according to the noun). There is a slight irregularity: euer does not become euere, but eure (it loses an internal -e-).
The following table has the forms in the nominative case. These are used for subjects, as in
| der Hund | das Insekt | die Katze | die Hunde | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| indef. article | ein | ein | eine | (keine) |
| ich | mein | mein | meine | meine |
| du | dein | dein | deine | deine |
| er/es | sein | sein | seine | seine |
| sie (fem.) | ihr | ihr | ihre | ihre |
| wir | unser | unser | unsere | unsere |
| ihr | euer | euer | eure | eure |
| sie (plural) | ihr | ihr | ihre | ihre |
As you might notice, ihr has several different functions, so make sure you understand the context it is used in.
The demonstrative pronouns in English are: this, that, these, and those. In German, in Nominative and Accusative, the demonstrative pronouns are the same as the definite articles.
That means, der, die and das can also mean "that (one)" or "this (one)" depending on the gender of the respective noun, and "die" (plural) can mean "these" or "those."
When spoken, the definite articles can serve a similar function:
The articles would be stressed in that case.
As in English, you cannot use the present tense for the past.
Unlike in English, the perfect tense is almost always used. You do not have to think whether the action is relevant to the present or not. Just use the perfect tense.
Here you will learn how the regular perfect participle forms work: just add ge- in front, and -t to the stem.
| machen | kochen |
| gemacht | gekocht |
Most of the time, German uses "haben" (have) as a helper verb, just like English:
Remember that German sentence structure requires you to put the subject-related part of the verb in position 2, and the rest of the verb to the end:
| 1 | 2 | … | end |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ich | habe | gestern Suppe | gekocht. |
| Gestern | habe | ich Suppe | gekocht. |
Remember that you can put many sentence elements at the sentence beginning:
Don't forget that if you do that, the verb will come second! This means that the subject will then be after the verb.
Generally, German puts the sentence element first that gives the context for the sentence. This is often the part that was stressed in a question before:
Never put the answer to a question in first position.
If in doubt, just start with the subject:
Earlier on you learned that nur means only:
German also has erst, which implies that there might be more coming:
Some other words can function as pronouns.
The following ones change their endings like definite articles:
| der | das | |
|---|---|---|
| this/these | dieser | dieses |
| every | jeder | jedes |
| some | mancher | manches |
| die (fem.) | die (pl.) |
|---|---|
| diese | diese |
| jede | --- |
| manche | manche |
This boy eats, that (boy/one) drinks.
Jedes Kind mag Pizza. (Every kid likes pizza.)
These roughly correspond to English "much/many". Use viel with uncountable nouns, viele with countable ones.
Just like nicht (not) has a look-alike nichts (nothing), alle (all) has alles (everything) as a counterpart.
Ein paar (lowercase p) means "a few", "some" or "a couple (of)" (only in the sense of at least two, not exactly two!).
Ein Paar (uppercase P) means "a pair (of)" and is only used for things that typically come in pairs of two, e.g. ein Paar Schuhe (a pair of shoes).
So this is quite similar to English "a couple" (a pair) vs. "a couple of" (some).
Both etwas and manche can be translated as "some" in certain contexts, but they don't have the same meaning.
etwas means "some" before an uncountable noun, when the meaning is "a little bit of, a small quantity of": The following noun is always in the singular in this meaning.
manche means "some" in the sense of "certain; some but not others" and almost always stands before a plural noun
There are different ways to negate expressions in German (much like in English you can use "no" in some cases, and "does not" in others). The German adverb nicht (not) is used very often, but sometimes you need to use kein (not a).
As mentioned in the lesson "Not", you should use nicht in the following situations:
For details, and to learn where to put nicht in a sentence, refer to the "Not" lesson.
Simply put, kein is composed of k + ein and placed where the indefinite article would be in a sentence. If you want to negate ein, use kein.
Just like mein and the other possessive pronouns, kein changes its ending like ein.
For instance, look at the positive and negative statement about these two nouns:
Here are the endings of the indefinite article so far:
| masc | neut | fem | plural | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| nominative | ein | ein | eine | --- |
| accusative | einen | ein | eine | --- |
Here is the list of the respective kein forms:
| masc | neut | fem | plural | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| nominative | kein | kein | keine | keine |
| accusative | keinen | kein | keine | keine |
Kein is also used for negating nouns that have no article: Er hat Brot. (He has bread.) versus Er hat kein Brot. (He has no bread.).
As a general rule:
Nicht is an adverb and is useful for negations. On the other hand, nichts (nothing/anything) is a pronoun and its meaning is different from that of nicht.
Using nicht simply negates a fact, and is less overarching than nichts. For example, Der Schüler lernt nicht. (The student does not learn.) is less extreme than Der Schüler lernt nichts. (The student does not learn anything.).
In German, "nobody" can be expressed in several ways.
As long as it refers to people, niemand works just fine:
There is also keiner. It changes endings like the definite articles:
| masc. | neut. | fem. | plural | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| nominative | der | das | die | die |
| accusative | den | das | die | die |
| masc. | neut. | fem. | plural | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| nominative | keiner | keines | keine | keine |
| accusative | keinen | keines | keine | keine |
For now, we teach only the default version (which is masculine in German):
In some ways, dative is the "easiest" case.
Articles (and related words) follow a simple ending system:
| gender | ending |
|---|---|
| feminine | -r |
| not feminine | -m |
| plural | -n |
Let's test this with the whole range of pronouns:
| Nom. | Akk. | Dat. |
|---|---|---|
| ich | mich | mir |
| du | dich | dir |
| er/es | ihn/es | ihm |
| sie (fem.) | sie | ihr |
| wir | uns | uns |
| ihr | euch | euch |
| sie/Sie | sie/Sie | ihnen |
As you see, the same rule applies: feminine (sie) becomes ihr, er/es become ihm, and sie (they) becomes ihnen.
Note that for (wir/ihr) (we/plural you), the forms for accusative and dative are the same.
Generally, dative adjectives always end in -en, regardless of gender or number.
| gender | adjective | English | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| f | mit meiner | alten | Katze | with my old cat |
| m/n | mit meinem | alten | Hund | with my old dog |
| pl | mit meinen | alten | Freunden | with my old friends |
There is one more thing: in dative plural, not only do the article and the adjective end in -n; even the noun itself will get an extra -n, if it does not have one already:
Of course, plurals ending in -s do not conform to this rule.
Now you can understand why some nouns use zur, but others zum. These are contractions of "zu der" + "zu dem". Feminine nouns use the former, others the latter.
German has some other contractions like this. So far you learned these:
As mentioned before, you can often know the gender of a noun by looking at the word ending.
In addition, rhyming can often help. If you already know a noun that rhymes with the new one, there's a good chance they will have the same gender. Go for it :)
When English uses a word from French, it usually pronounces it according to English sound rules. German will often sound more close to the original.
An example for this is Restaurant. Like in French, the last syllable will sound roughly like "raw". The -t will be silent. Some people will pronounce the ending similar to English "rung" instead. Of course, the R- will sound like the German r, not the English one.
Remember that the standard way to create the perfect participle is to add ge- to the beginning of the verb stem, and -t to the end:
Verbs that do not have the stress on the first syllable do not get a ge- in the beginning.
There are two classes of these. First, it includes all verbs ending in -ieren, as these are stressed on the -ie-:
The other one you will encounter in the next skill.
Notice that these look like the third person singular, but they are not:
German is well known for its long words that can be made up on the go by concatenating existing words. In this skill you will learn one very simple and commonly used way of forming compounds: adding -zeug (="stuff") to existing words.
Remember that the last element determines gender and plural. So all new words in this lesson will be neuter.
OK, because you asked: the longest "real" German word (so far) is:
(Without the hyphens. We had to add those in order to be able to show the whole word…)
It's a law on how to transfer tasks about the monitoring of the labeling of beef. At least that's what the word says.
If you enjoyed this, check out "Rhabarberbarbara" on Youtube.
No, words like this don't normally happen in German :)
In English, you can't count "stuff" -- you can't use the plural "stuffs" or say that "there are three stuffs on the floor". Instead, "stuff" is a collective noun, referring to a group of things but used in the singular: "there is stuff on the floor".
Some German -zeug words can work like this as well -- for example, Spielzeug and Werkzeug in the singular, without an article, mean "toys" and "tools", which are plural in English.
Those words can also be used in a countable way: ein Spielzeug, zwei Werkzeuge "one toy, two tools". So "the tools" could be either das Werkzeug or die Werkzeuge -- the former would view the tools as a group, the latter would consider them individually.
Look out for whether there is an indefinite article or number before the singular word to see whether it's used countably or uncountably.
If there's a possessive word or a definite article before such a noun in the singular, it could be either: mein Werkzeug ist neu could mean either "My tool is new" or "My tools are new", for example; similarly with das Werkzeug ist neu which could be either "The tool is new" or "The tools are new".
(An English word that works similarly is "fruit" -- "my fruit" could refer to just one apple, or it could refer to two apples and a banana all together, depending on whether "fruit" is used countably or uncountably.)
Other -zeug words are always regular countable words, such as Flugzeug "airplane" or Feuerzeug "lighter".
In the Languages skill, you learned that verbs ending in -ieren do not get a ge- prefix in the perfect tense:
The reason is that the first syllable of the verb is not stressed.
There is another group of verbs like this. These end in any one of the following unstressed prefixes:
Note the difference between kaufen ("to buy", first syllable stressed) and verkaufen ("to sell", first syllable not stressed):
As in English, perfect participles do not change, regardless of person:
"Who?" has three forms in German, according to case. These have the same endings as the masculine "the". But of course, they work for all genders, and plural:
| Case | who? | the (masc.) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nominative | wer | der | I |
| Accusative | wen | den | II |
| Dative | wem | dem | III |
Note how the number of legs of the last letter neatly align with I, II, III :)
Use Norden, Süden, Osten, Westen when talking about a place within another place:
Use nördlich, südlich, östlich, westlich when talking about a place relative to another:
Most place names don't have an article (they happen to be neuter, but that's mostly irrelevant):
When talking about a direction, these use nach:
A few place names do have an article:
You cannot use nach with those. Instead, use "in + accusative":
When talking about being in a location, you will use the dative versions:
You will learn more about this dative/accusative switch in the later skill "Furniture".
In general, nouns have two forms, singular and plural:
In dative plural, all nouns that do not already have an -n ending get one:
In this skill, you encounter a special all-masculine noun group. These will have an -en ending in all forms, except for the nominative singular (the dictionary form):
This group includes:
Here is an example table for der Junge (the boy):
| Case | Singular | Plural |
|---|---|---|
| Nominative | der Junge | die Jungen |
| Accusative | den Jungen | die Jungen |
| Dative | dem Jungen | den Jungen |
There is one last group of irregular nouns. These are actually adjectives that became nouns, but keep their rich set of adjective endings. As long as you know the adjective endings, these are straightforward to use:
| Adjective | Noun |
|---|---|
| ein deutscher Mann | ein Deutscher |
| der deutsche Mann | der Deutsche |
| eine deutsche Frau | eine Deutsche |
| mit einer deutschen Frau | mit einer Deutschen |
Refer to the Clothes skill for an overview of the adjective endings.
In this skill, you encounter:
| Adjective | Adj. noun (masc. sg.) |
|---|---|
| deutsch (German) | Deutscher (German) |
| erwachsen (adult) | Erwachsener (adult) |
| verwandt (related) | Verwandter (relative) |
| bekannt (known) | Bekannter (acquaintance) |
Aside from the nominative case, most of the German pronouns are declined according to case. Like in English, when the subject becomes the object, the pronoun changes. For instance, ich changes to mich (accusative object) as in Sie sieht mich. (She sees me.).
| Nominative (subject) | Accusative (object) |
|---|---|
| ich (I) | mich (me) |
| du (you singular informal) | dich (you singular informal) |
| er (he) sie (she) es (it) | ihn (him) sie (her) es (it) |
| wir (we) | uns (us) |
| ihr (you plural informal) | euch (you plural informal) |
| sie (they) | sie (them) |
Notice that apart from masculine singular, the third person forms are the same in nominative and accusative. The masculine form, which does change, has the same endings as the definite article (der becomes den).
You might remember from the lesson "Personal Pronouns" that German possessive pronouns change their endings like the indefinite article:
This extends to all cases. You already know that in the accusative case, only masculine singular changes:
but:
So, if you see einen, meinen, unseren and so forth with a singular noun, you will know two things:
Consider this example:
It is clear here that the dog must be the object (accusative). So actually the woman does not like the dog.
Here is the table of possessive pronouns for the accusative case:
| Accusative | der Hund | das Insekt | die Katze | die Hunde |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| indef. article | einen | ein | eine | (keine) |
| ich | meinen | mein | meine | meine |
| du | deinen | dein | deine | deine |
| er/es | seinen | sein | seine | seine |
| sie (fem.) | ihren | ihr | ihre | ihre |
| wir | unseren | unser | unsere | unsere |
| ihr | euren | euer | eure | eure |
| sie (plural) | ihren | ihr | ihre | ihre |
These roughly correspond to English "much/many". Use viel with uncountable nouns, viele with countable ones.
Viele changes endings like the articles. But because the plural forms are the same for nominative and accusative, for now it will look always the same.
Jeder changes endings like definite articles:
Möbel corresponds to English "furniture". While "furniture" is singular, Möbel is normally only used in the plural.
A conjunction like wenn (when) or und (and) connects two parts of a sentence together.
Coordinating conjunctions form a group of coordinators (like und (and), aber (but)), which combine two items of equal importance; here, each clause can stand on its own and the word order does not change.
Examples: und, oder, aber, denn
Subordinating conjunctions combine an independent clause with a dependent clause; the dependent clause cannot stand on its own and its word order will be different than if it did. In these subordinate clauses, the verb switches from the second position to the last.
Ich bin gesund, weil ich oft laufe.
Ich spreche gut Deutsch. Ich lerne oft Deutsch.
Examples: weil, wenn, dass, obwohl
Correlative conjunctions work in pairs to join sentence parts of equal importance. For instance, entweder...oder (either...or) is such a pair and can be used like this: Der Schuh ist entweder blau oder rot. (This shoe is either blue or red.).
In German, conjunctions do not change with the case (i.e. they are not declinable).
Du trägst entweder einen Rock oder eine Hose.
Du wäschst den Rock. Du trägst eine Hose.
Examples: entweder … oder, nicht nur … sondern auch, weder … noch
Sondern works like "but … instead" in English. It only takes the element that is different:
Ich trage kein Kleid, sondern eine Hose.
Sie kommt nicht aus Deutschland. Sie kommt aus China.
Here are the nominative adjective endings you've learned so far:
| gender | article | adjective | noun |
|---|---|---|---|
| fem. | die | alte | Frau |
| fem. | eine | alte | Frau |
| masc. | der | alte | Mann |
| neut. | das | kleine | Kind |
| pl. | — | alte | Männer |
Remember that in accusative, only masculine changes:
| gender | article | adjective | noun |
|---|---|---|---|
| masc. | den | alten | Mann |
| masc. | einen | alten | Mann |
Also, dative adjectives will always (so far) end in -en:
| gender | article | adjective | noun |
|---|---|---|---|
| fem. | der | alten | Frau |
| fem. | einer | alten | Frau |
| masc./neut. | dem | kleinen | Mann/Kind |
| masc./neut. | einem | kleinen | Mann/Kind |
| pl. | den | alten | Männern |
| pl. | — | alten | Männern |
In later skills, you will complete this system.
Here you learn that when you add an article in plural (nominative or accusative), you also have to add an -n to the adjective:
| article | adjective | noun |
|---|---|---|
| — | alte | Hunde |
| die | alten | Hunde |
| meine | alten | Hunde |
| keine | alten | Hunde |
| welche | alten | Hunde? |
| diese | alten | Hunde |
Note that besides articles, some other article-like words will have the same effect (pronouns, keine, welche, diese).
So far, you learned that perfect participles
but not when the first syllable is not stressed
kaufen, gekauft
Most verbs act like this. However, there is an old group of very common verbs, which shows two differences.
Their perfect participles
might have a vowel (or other) change in the verb stem
fahren > gefahren, schlafen > geschlafen
Otherwise, they behave like the other group: if their first syllable is unstressed, they lose the ge-:
Thus, these might be confused with infinitives.
The latter group is called "strong verbs", the former (more abundant, regular one) "weak verbs".
The modal verb wollen means "to want":
Do not confuse it with the English verb "will".
As a modal verb, it follows their rules:
| person | wollen |
|---|---|
| ich | will |
| du | willst |
| er/sie/es | will |
| wir | wollen |
| ihr | wollt |
| sie/Sie | wollen |
In English, you refer to one "person", but multiple "people". In German, Leute is also only used in the plural. The singular is eine Person.
Germany has many Turkish people. These are not necessarily from Turkey. Most have had their parents or even their grandparents born in Germany.
Earlier, you might have wondered about the following:
Here's what's happening: for a range of prepositions, the accusative case indicates location change, while the dative case indicates the location stays the same:
In this skill, you'll only encounter sentences without location change. In the next skill, you can practice both.
English usually uses "to be" to describe position:
German distinguishes between the following:
| German | English |
|---|---|
| stehen | stand |
| sitzen | sit |
| liegen | lie |
| hängen | hang |
Sometimes, these are straightforward:
Sometimes, you have to consider whether an object is more vertical (standing) or horizontal (lying):
In the last skill, you saw that when describing a position, the preposition generally takes the dative:
German has a range of "two-way prepositions":
These will take the dative when describing a position. But when indicating a location change, they will instead take the accusative!
This takes a lot of practice to master!
Some prepositions always go with dative:
And some always go with accusative:
We recommend you learn the "pure" dative/accusative prepositions first. Then you only have to decide "location change or not?" for those that are not in that list.
There are some verb pairs, where one verb describes a position, while the other indicates a placement:
| position | placement |
|---|---|
| liegen | legen |
| sitzen | setzen |
| stehen | stellen |
| hängen | hängen |
The verbs in the first column will use the dative when used with prepositions such as "in, auf, …". Those in the second column will instead use the accusative. This was explained above.
The last two verbs in the table look the same, but they have different perfect participles:
| position | placement |
|---|---|
| gelegen | gelegt |
| gesessen | gesetzt |
| gestanden | gestellt |
| gehangen | gehängt |
Note that the variants for position have "strong" participles, while the ones for placement have "weak" (regular) ones.
Remember that the adjective ending for "das, der, die, eine" ist -e:
| gender | article | adjective | noun |
|---|---|---|---|
| fem. | die | alte | Frau |
| fem. | eine | alte | Frau |
| masc. | der | alte | Mann |
| neut. | das | kleine | Kind |
| pl. | — | alte | Männer |
In this skill, you will encounter the following new ending:
| gender | article | adjective | noun |
|---|---|---|---|
| neut. | das | kleine | Kind |
| neut. | ein | kleines | Kind |
The logic here is that either the article or the adjective (but not both!) need to have an -s ending.
Nominative and accusative are the same for neuter, feminine and plural.
You will be able to practice all adjective endings in the later Clothes skill.
Compare the difference between a statement and an order in English:
Remember that German has three forms for "you":
The imperative form for the latter two are straightforward:
| Statement | Order |
|---|---|
| Ihr kommt in den Garten. | Kommt in den Garten! |
| Sie kommen in den Garten. | Kommen Sie in den Garten! |
For ihr, you just remove the pronoun. For Sie, you place it after the verb, instead of before it.
For du, the main rule goes like this:
| Statement | Order |
|---|---|
| Du kommst in den Garten. | Komm in den Garten! |
You omit the pronoun, and the -st ending of the verb.
However, there are some quirks:
| Statement | Order | Explanation |
|---|---|---|
| Du trinkst. | Trink! | Regular |
| Du isst. | Iss! | Infinitive is essen |
| Du fährst. | Fahr! | Remove umlaut |
| Du arbeitest | Arbeite! | extra e remains |
Questions can be asked by switching the subject and verb. For instance,
becomes
These kinds of questions will generally just elicit yes/no answers. In English, the main verb "to be" follows the same principle. "You are hungry." becomes "Are you hungry?".
In German, all verbs follow this principle. There's no do-support.
There are seven W-questions in German:
| English | German |
|---|---|
| what | was |
| who | wer |
| where | wo |
| when | wann |
| how | wie |
| why | warum |
| which | welcher |
Don't mix up wer and wo, which are "switched" in English :)
Some of these will change according to case.
If you ask was with a preposition, the two normally turn into a new word, according to the following pattern:
| English | preposition | wo- |
|---|---|---|
| for what | für | wofür |
| about what | über | worüber |
| with what | mit | womit |
If the preposition starts with a vowel, there will be an extra -r- to make it easier to pronounce.
This wo- prefix does not mean "where".
Wer is declinable and needs to adjust to the cases. The adjustment depends on what the question is targeting.
If you ask for the subject of a sentence (i.e. the nominative object), wer (who) remains as is:
If you ask for the direct (accusative) object in a sentence, wer changes to wen (who/whom). As a mnemonic, notice how wen rhymes with den in den Apfel.
You will soon learn about the Dative case. You have to use wem then. And there is a forth case in German (Genitive). You would use wessen here. This corresponds to English "whose".
The endings look like the endings of der (but don't change with gender/number):
| case | masc. | Form of wer |
|---|---|---|
| nominative | der | wer |
| accusative | den | wen |
| dative | dem | wem |
Welche- words are used to ask about for a specific item out of a group of items, such as "which car is yours?".
This declines not only for case, but also for gender. The endings are the same as for definite articles:
| article | welch* |
|---|---|
| der | welcher |
| das | welches |
| die | welche |
| die (pl.) | welche |
| den | welchen |
In German, you can inquire about locations in several ways.
Wo (where) is the general question word, but if you are asking for a direction in which someone or something is moving, you may use *wohin* (where to).
Consider these examples:
Wo ist mein Schuh? (Where is my shoe?)
Wohin gehst du? (Where are you going (to)?)
Furthermore, wohin is separable into wo + hin:
The same goes for woher (where from):
might become
| English | German |
|---|---|
| where | wo |
| where to | wohin |
| where from | woher |
Wann (when) does not change depending on the case. Wann can be used with conjunctions such as seit (since) or bis (till):
Seit wann wartest du? (Since when have you been waiting?)
Bis wann geht der Film? (Till when does the movie last?).
Don't confuse wann with wenn which you learned in Conjunctions. Both translate to "when" in English, but they have different functions in German.
Wann kommst du? (When are you coming?)
Ich schlafe nicht, wenn ich Musik höre. (I don't sleep when I listen to music)
Warum (why) is also not declinable. It will never change endings. Wieso, Weshalb, and Weswegen can be used instead of Warum. There's no difference in meaning.
Here is an example. All four following sentences mean "Why is the car so old?".
Warum ist das Auto so alt?
Wieso ist das Auto so alt?
Weshalb ist das Auto so alt?
Weswegen ist das Auto so alt?
Wie viel is used with uncountable or countable nouns (how much/how many), and wie viele is only used with countable nouns (how many). Some people think that "wie viel" can only be used with uncountable nouns, but that is not true.
Wie viel Milch trinkst du? (How much milk do you drink?)
Wie viel(e) Tiere siehst du? (How many animals do you see?)
Just like in English, there are informal and formal words for "mother", "father", "grandmother", and "grandfather". Note that in German, the difference between formal and informal is a lot more pronounced than in English. The informal terms are pretty much only used within your own family.
| formal | informal |
|---|---|
| die Mutter (the mother) | die Mama (the mom) |
| der Vater (the father) | der Papa (the dad) |
| die Großmutter (the grandmother) | die Oma (the grandma) |
| der Großvater (the grandfather) | der Opa (the grandpa) |
You might notice that most members of the close family have their own "system" of plurals:
| singular | plural |
|---|---|
| die Mutter | die Mütter |
| der Vater | die Väter |
| der Bruder | die Brüder |
| die Tochter | die Töchter |
| die Schwester | die Schwestern |
Schwester has an extra -n, because it can't change its vowel (e has no umlaut).
Eltern (parents) has no singular, unlike in English. We normally refer to Mutter or Vater then.
If necessary, there is a word das Elternteil (literally, "the parents part"). But this is only used in formal settings, for example on forms.
There are countless alternative words for certain family members. A lot of them are regionalisms or influenced by your own family's heritage. Some of them are ambiguous as well. For instance, some people call their father "papa", and some people call their grandfather "papa".
We can't accept all these terms, and since translations used in the German course for English speakers may also pop up in the English course for German speakers, we don't want to confuse German speakers with these words. Please understand that we're not going to add more alternatives. In your own interest, stick to the ones suggested by Duolingo (see above).
Most likely, food is being consumed at the table. The German preposition am is the contraction of an (at/on) and dem (the). For example, The man eats at the table is Der Mann isst am (an + dem) Tisch. Since an can translate to both at and on, am can translate to both at the and on the, depending on the context. For example an dem Tisch only translates to at the table (context: spatial relationship between things) and an dem Tag only translates to on that day (context: temporal).
In English, you can say "I'm having bread" when you really mean that you're eating or about to eat bread. This does not work in German. The verb haben refers to possession only. Hence, the sentence Ich habe Brot only translates to I have bread, not I'm having bread. Of course, the same applies to drinks. Ich habe Wasser only translates to I have water, not I'm having water.
We're aware that dinner is sometimes used synonymously with lunch, but for the purpose of this course, we're defining Frühstück as breakfast, Mittagessen as lunch, and dinner / supper as Abendessen / Abendbrot.
A compound word is a word that consists of two or more words. These are written as one word (no spaces).
The gender of a compound noun is always determined by its last element. This shouldn't be too difficult to remember because the last element is always the most important one. All the previous elements merely describe the last element.
die Autobahn (das Auto + die Bahn)
der Orangensaft (die Orange + der Saft)
das Hundefutter (der Hund + das Futter)
Sometimes, there's a connecting sound (Fugenlaut) between two elements. For instance, die Orange + der Saft becomes der Orangensaft, der Hund + das Futter becomes das Hundefutter, die Liebe + das Lied becomes das Liebeslied, and der Tag + das Gericht becomes das Tagesgericht.
The word süß means sweet when referring to food, and cute when referring to living beings.
Prepositions take a noun (or a noun phrase):
In German, prepositions will change this noun into one of the cases (but never into nominative).
Here, you learn those that always trigger the accusative case.
Remember that as long as the noun is not masculine singular, the nominative and the accusative will look the same.
Accusative prepositions always trigger the accusative case.
German has these common accusative prepositions: durch, für, gegen, ohne, um
Entlang is a strange word :) It is commonly used with the accusative case. But then it has to appear after the noun.
It can be used before the noun, but then triggers a different case. This sounds a bit old-fashioned or stilted today. So better use it after the noun.
The German auxiliary verb werden has several functions, depending on grammatical context.
When used with an adjective or noun, it corresponds to English "to get/become":
The forms of werden roughly follow the pattern of strong verbs (essen, fahren, …):
| ich | werde |
| du | wirst |
| er | wird |
| wir | werden |
| ihr | werdet |
| sie/Sie | werden |
You might notice that German numbers look very similar to those in English. The two languages are closely related. So any time you encounter a new word, it's worth checking whether you can find a similar-looking word in English.
At some point, you might realize that there are several more or less consistent changes between English and German. Here are some:
| Change | English | German |
|---|---|---|
| t > s/z | ten, two | zehn, zwei |
| gh > ch | eight | acht |
| v > b | seven | sieben |
| th > d/t | three | drei |
| o > ei | one, two | eins, zwei |
Generally, the vowels change faster than the consonants. So go for the consonants when looking for related words.
You learned bezahlen (to pay) earlier. There's also the word zahlen, which also means to pay. In this lesson, you learn zählen, which means "to count". Don't confuse the two.
In addition, you will see Zahlen. The upper-case initial tells you this is a noun. It is the plural of die Zahl (the number).
In this skill, you will encounter the following irregular perfect participles:
| Infinitive | Perfect participle |
|---|---|
| werden | geworden |
| sein | gewesen |
In this skill, you will encounter all adjective endings for the three main cases: nominative, accusative and dative.
As described in earlier skills, the adjective ending for "das, der, die, eine" ist -e:
| gender | article | adjective | noun |
|---|---|---|---|
| fem. | die | alte | Frau |
| fem. | eine | alte | Frau |
| masc. | der | alte | Mann |
| neut. | das | kleine | Kind |
| pl. | — | alte | Männer |
You also learned that for neuter, either the article or the adjective (but not both!) need to have an -s ending:
| gender | article | adjective | noun |
|---|---|---|---|
| neut. | das | kleine | Kind |
| neut. | ein | kleines | Kind |
The same logic applies to masculine forms. Either the article or the adjective end in -r:
| gender | article | adjective | noun |
|---|---|---|---|
| masc. | der | alte | Mann |
| masc. | ein | alter | Mann |
Nominative and accusative are the same for neuter, feminine and plural.
For masculine accusative, the articles and the adjective both get -en endings:
| gender | article | adjective | noun |
|---|---|---|---|
| masc. | den | alten | Mann |
| masc. | einen | alten | Mann |
Finally, dative adjectives end in -en, regardless of person.
Welcome to the third important case in German :) Later on, there will be a last, less important one.
You already saw that the accusative case can be used in different ways.
It can signify the object of a sentence:
This is called the direct object (or accusative object).
It can also be used in combination with some prepositions:
The dative case also has a range of different functions.
In this lesson, you learn to use it with the indirect object. This is also called the dative object.
The indirect object in a sentence is the receiver of the direct (accusative) object.
For example, Frau is the indirect (dative) object in
You can think about it as "the other person involved" in a transaction.
As a rule the dative object comes before the accusative object, if none of these objects is a pronoun (things are a little more complicated if pronouns come into play):
The dative is also used for certain dative verbs such as danken (to thank) and antworten (to answer), or helfen (to help):
These verbs don't have an accusative object.
Note that the dative changes all articles for the words.
For example, die Katze is a feminine noun. However, the article in dative will be der. This might look like the masculine article. But in the context of a sentence, there will never be any confusion between the two, as long as you know your genders. This is one reason why it's so important to know the gender of a word.
| definite articles | Nominative | Accusative | Dative |
|---|---|---|---|
| masculine | der | den | dem |
| neuter | das | das | dem |
| feminine | die | die | der |
| plural | die | die | den |
| indefinite articles | Nominative | Accusative | Dative |
|---|---|---|---|
| masculine | ein | einen | einem |
| neuter | ein | ein | einem |
| feminine | eine | eine | einer |
| plural | (keine) | (keine) | (keinen) |
Notice how masculine and neuter look the same in Dative (just like they look the same for Nominative indefinite articles).
This also means that if you see a noun in the Dative, and the article ends in -r, it will be a feminine word. Alternatively, if it ends in -m, it won't.
It is very much worth remembering these Dative endings, because they will pop up in different context, and help you a lot to sort out the grammar. In a way, Dative is the "simplest" case :)
| Dative endings | |
|---|---|
| Masculine/Neuter | -m |
| Feminine | -r |
| Plural | -n |
Here's a great rule:
Plural Dative: Everything gets an -n
(Insert Oprah Winfrey GIF here)
You just saw that articles (also pronouns etc.) get an -n ending in dative plural.
Later, you will learn that the German ending system for adjectives is a bit complicated. However, in dative plural, you just add an -n.
It goes so far that even plural forms of nouns get an extra -n in the Dative.
There are two "exceptions":
Some masculine nouns add an -en or -n ending in the dative and in all other cases besides the nominative. For example in the dative, it is dem Jungen (the boy).
If you want to look these up, the term for them is "n-Declension".
Many words change in the dative case. For the third person pronouns, the following are different from the nominative case: the masculine pronoun is ihm (to him), the feminine is ihr (to her), the neuter is ihm (to it), and the plural is ihnen (to them).
| Nominative | Accusative | Dative |
|---|---|---|
| ich (I) | mich (me) | mir (to me) |
| du | dich | dir |
| er / es / sie | ihn / es / sie | ihm / ihm / ihr |
| wir | uns | uns |
| ihr | euch | euch |
| sie | sie | ihnen |
Some observations:
In dative, mir, dir, ihr (to me / you / her) rhyme.
In the third person, the endings are the same as for the articles: -m, -r, -n. However, plural dative is "ihnen" (not ihn, as you might expect).
In the second person plural, accusative and dative pronouns are the same.
Now you can understand why, when thanking a female person, it is only correct to say Ich danke ihr ("I thank her", literally "I give-thank to her") and not Ich danke sie (that sounds like "I thank she" would sound to an English speaker).
Remember that some verbs have a dative object. This is just a quirk of German. There was a reason for it when these words were created, but it's not easy to understand anymore, after a lot of language change.
In short, you just have to learn these :) There aren't very many.
Gehören literally means to "belong to". But don't translate too literally, often a different translation will be more natural.
Tall people are groß, not hoch, and short people are klein, not kurz.
This is why German people will often refer to tall people as "big" :)
These are French words. While it is possible to write Cousine as Kusine now, German never found a way to actually spell Cousin differently. This is because German originally does not have the French sound at the end. Some people pronounce it like "Kusäng" instead.
Both Die Frau kennt ihren Onkel and Die Frau kennt seinen Onkel are grammatically correct, but they don't have the same meaning.
When you say Die Frau kennt ihren Onkel, you're either talking about the woman's own uncle, another female person's uncle, or the uncle of multiple people.
When you say Die Frau kennt seinen Onkel, you're talking about another person's uncle, and that person is male. People can know other people's relatives.
Earlier, you learned that some prepositions always trigger the accusative case.
The most common ones are durch, für, gegen, ohne, um.
In the same way, dative prepositions always trigger the dative case.
Again, here are the common ones: aus, bei, gegenüber, mit, nach, seit, von, zu.
Some prepositions and articles can be contracted.
| preposition + article | contraction |
|---|---|
| bei + dem | beim |
| von + dem | vom |
| vor + das | vors |
| zu + dem | zum |
| zu + der | zur |
There are some more, which you will learn later.
Seit roughly means "since". However, it works a bit differently.
First, it always denotes something that is still going on.
Second, it has three different ways of usage.
Consider these examples:
In the first example, seit defines a stretch of time, which reaches into the present.
In the second example, it also defines a stretch of time, reaching into the present. But it defines this stretch of time by its starting point.
Seit can also be a subordinating conjunction (check the lesson "Conjunctions"). In these, the verb leaves the second position of the sentence, and ends up at the end. This is why in the last example, ich kann denken (I can think) turns into seit ich denken kann.
Zu Hause means at home, and nach Hause means home (homewards, not at home).
The -e at the end of zu Hause and nach Hause is an archaic dative ending, which is no longer used in modern German, but survived in certain fixed expressions.
Ich bin zu Hause. (I am at home.)
Ich gehe nach Hause. (I am walking home.)
Again, the gender of a word for an animal does not depend on the animal's actual gender, but on the word.
Note that "Löwe, Affe" are masculine. The "die -e" rule is very robust, but only if applied to words describing objects:
The German word mal translates to times quite often:
Earlier, you learned the various forms of "a(n)" in German:
| gender | Nominative | Accusative |
|---|---|---|
| der (masc.) | ein | einen |
| das (neut.) | ein | ein |
| die (fem.) | eine | eine |
These can mean "a(n)" as well as "one":
In the earlier skill "Need" you saw that "my, your, …" have the same endings:
You also learned in "Need" that "mine, yours, …", "which" and "this/that" have the same endings as "the" in German:
In English, you can also say:
Here, it acts more like a pronoun, similar to "mine, yours, …".
And just like for "mine, yours, …", the endings will then be the same as for "the":
| gender | Nominative | Accusative |
|---|---|---|
| der (masc.) | einer | einen |
| das (neut.) | eines | eines |
| die (fem.) | eine | eine |
Note that all non-bold forms look identical to the forms of "a(n)" that you learned earlier.
Look at these three sentences, all meaning "Here is one!" in English:
| gender | sentence | topic |
|---|---|---|
| masc. | Hier ist einer! | der Hund |
| neut. | Hier ist eines! | das Kind |
| fem. | Hier ist eine! | die Frau |
Keiner (none, no-one) works the same way:
Meist- works similar to English "most", but there are differences.
mit den meisten Leuten (with most people)
German uses the definite article
Instead of "every month", German uses "monthly" for all time intervals:
| Noun | Adjective |
|---|---|
| die Sekunde | sekündlich |
| die Minute | minütlich |
| die Stunde | stündlich |
| der Tag | täglich |
| die Woche | wöchentlich |
| der Monat | monatlich |
| das Jahr | jährlich |
Mind that all of these have an umlaut change, except for monatlich.
Folgen (to follow) has a dative object only:
Earlier, you learned some other verbs that only take a dative object:
There are not very many of these "dative only" verbs in German.
Beißen (to bite) and stechen (to sting) are strong (slightly irregular) verbs:
| Person | beißen | stechen |
|---|---|---|
| ich | beiße | steche |
| du | beißt | stichst |
| er/sie/es | beißt | sticht |
| wir | beißen | stechen |
| ihr | beißt | stecht |
| sie/Sie | beißen | stechen |
| perf. part. | gebissen | gestochen |
Here is an overview of time spans:
| Minuten | |
|---|---|
| 10 | zehn Minuten |
| 15 | eine Viertelstunde |
| 30 | eine halbe Stunde |
| 45 | eine Dreiviertelstunde |
| 60 | eine Stunde |
| 90 | eineinhalb Stunden |
| 120 | zwei Stunden |
| 150 | zweieinhalb Stunden |
When speaking, pay attention to the endings (marked in bold) of eine halbe Stunde and eineinhalb Stunden. If you mix these up, people will think you mean the other one.
Eineinhalb literally means "one, one half" (60+30). Some people use anderthalb instead.
Just as with gern(e), alleine can omit the -e, without a change in meaning.
Sollen is a modal verb. Unlike most others, it does not change its vowel.
Here are its present tense forms:
| Person | sollen |
|---|---|
| ich | soll |
| du | sollst |
| er/sie/es | soll |
| wir | sollen |
| ihr | sollt |
| sie/Sie | sollen |
When used as an adjective, the German forms for "left/right" are normal:
When used as an adverb, they get an extra -s:
There are two main ways to express pain in German.
First, you can just combine the body part with "Schmerzen" (a plural word meaning "pain"):
This works for only some kinds of body parts, though.
Another way is to say "Mein X tut weh." (Literally, "my X does pain.)
Gegen (against) always takes accusative:
Wegen usually takes the dative:
It can also take the genitive (the fourth, less important case). You will learn about this soon.
As described in earlier skills, the adjective ending for "das, der, die, eine" ist -e:
| gender | article | adjective | noun |
|---|---|---|---|
| fem. | die | alte | Frau |
| fem. | eine | alte | Frau |
| masc. | der | alte | Mann |
| neut. | das | kleine | Kind |
| pl. | — | alte | Männer |
In the last skill, you learned that for neuter, either the article or the adjective (but not both!) need to have an -s ending:
| gender | article | adjective | noun |
|---|---|---|---|
| neut. | das | kleine | Kind |
| neut. | ein | kleines | Kind |
The same logic applies to masculine forms. Either the article or the adjective end in -r:
| gender | article | adjective | noun |
|---|---|---|---|
| masc. | der | alte | Mann |
| masc. | ein | alter | Mann |
Nominative and accusative are the same for neuter, feminine and plural.
Keep in mind that for masculine accusative, the articles and the adjective both get -en endings:
| gender | article | adjective | noun |
|---|---|---|---|
| masc. | den | alten | Mann |
| masc. | einen | alten | Mann |
Now you can use all nominative and accusative forms, and also (in general) all dative forms (which so far all end in -en)!
Ordinals are adjectives, and carry the same endings:
The general rule is that from one to nineteen, you add a -t- between number and adjective ending:
| 2. | zweite |
| 4. | vierte |
| 8. | achte |
| 10. | zehnte |
| 12. | zwölfte |
| 19. | neunzehnte |
Starting with twenty, you add -st- instead:
| 20. | zwanzigste |
| 42. | zweiundvierzigste |
| 100. | hundertste |
| 1000. | tausendste |
Only three forms are irregular:
| 1. | erste |
| 3. | dritte |
| 7. | siebte |
Note that in German, you just place a dot after a number to indicate it is an ordinal.
By now, you have encountered all the pronouns for all the three main cases:
| Nom. | Acc. | Dat. |
|---|---|---|
| ich | mich | mir |
| du | dich | dir |
| er | ihn | ihm |
| es | es | ihm |
| sie | sie | ihr |
| wir | uns | uns |
| ihr | euch | euch |
| sie/Sie | sie/Sie | ihr/Ihr |
The next table shows the possessive pronouns. Only two endings are given here:
| Person | Nom. masc./neut. | Nom./Akk. fem./pl. |
|---|---|---|
| ich | mein | meine |
| du | dein | deine |
| er/es | sein | seine |
| sie | ihr | ihre |
| wir | unser | unsere |
| ihr | euer | eure |
| sie/Sie | ihr/Ihr | ihre/Ihre |
Note that for euer, the last -e- of the word stem gets lost when adding an ending.
The complete endings set is the same as for ein:
| Case + gender | example poss. pronoun |
|---|---|
| Nom. m/n, Acc n | mein |
| Acc m | meinen |
| Nom/Acc f/pl | meine |
| Dat m/n | meinem |
| Dat f | meiner |
| Dat pl | meinen |
In this skill, you will encounter the following irregular perfect participles:
| Infinitive | Perfect participle |
|---|---|
| schlafen | geschlafen |
| essen | gegessen |
| singen | gesungen |
| trinken | getrunken |
| finden | gefunden |
| helfen | geholfen |
| gehen | gegangen |
| verstehen | verstanden |
In addition, there is a small group of "mixed" verbs, that change the verb stem, but keep the -t ending:
| Infinitive | Perfect participle |
|---|---|
| rennen | gerannt |
| brennen | gebrannt |
| müssen | gemusst |
The imperative mood is used to express commands, just like in English.
There are three different forms, according to the three types of "you" in German.
The imperative for du is very similar to English:
For most verbs, to come up with the correct verb form, just lose the -st ending:
Arbeite nachts! (Work at night!)
Du nimmst das Taxi. (You take the taxi.)
You might have noticed that some common verbs have an extra umlaut in the 2nd/3rd person singular:
In the imperative, these do not have an umlaut:
The second one is used to address more than one person informally. It uses the same conjugation as the regular ihr form of the present tense. This form of the imperative does not include a personal pronoun.
The third one is used to address one or more people formally. It uses the same conjugation as the regular Sie form of the present tense. The formal imperative is the only form to include the personal pronoun (Sie). Note that the word order is reversed. The verb always precedes the pronoun. It essentially looks like a question.
The verb sein (to be) is highly irregular. It even has its own imperative version:
| normal | imperative |
|---|---|
| du bist | sei |
| ihr seid | seid |
| Sie sind | seien Sie |
The following sentences all mean "Please be quiet!":
As mentioned before, a small number of common verbs changes the vowel in the second + third person singular.
The change will normally be from a to ä or from e to i(e).
| nehmen | geben | essen | lesen | lassen | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ich | nehme | gebe | esse | lese | lasse |
| du | nimmst | gibst | isst | liest | lässt |
| er/sie/es | nimmt | gibt | isst | liest | lässt |
| wir | nehmen | geben | essen | lesen | lassen |
| ihr | nehmt | gebt | esst | lest | lasst |
| sie/Sie | nehmen | geben | essen | lesen | lassen |
In this skill, you learn the basics necessary to fill in a form.
Ledig means you have never been married.
In earlier times, parents would decide who to marry. They would literally "marry off" their children. This is what "verheiraten" refers to. We don't do that anymore, but we still use its perfect participle as an adjective/adverb:
On the other hand, "heiraten" means "to marry":
These often get confused, because English uses the same word for both.
Ein Student is a university student and a Schüler is a pupil/student at a primary, secondary or high school. Students attending other types of schools such as language or dancing schools may also be called Schüler.
When talking about your or someone else's profession in sentences such as I'm a teacher or She's a judge, German speakers usually drop the indefinite article (ein/eine).
It sounds more natural to say Ich bin Lehrer and Sie ist Richterin than Ich bin ein Lehrer and Sie ist eine Richterin. This rule also applies to students.
If you add an adjective, you can't drop the article. Er ist ein schlechter Arzt (He's a bad doctor) is correct, but Er ist schlechter Arzt is not.
Also note that you can't drop the definite article (der/die/das).
The grammatical gender usually matches the biological sex of the person you're referring to.
So the word that refers to a male baker is grammatically masculine, and the word that refers to a female baker is grammatically feminine.
In the vast majority of cases, the female variant is formed by simply adding the suffix -in to the male variant, e.g. der Bäcker becomes die Bäckerin and der Schüler (the pupil) becomes die Schülerin.
The plural of the female variant is formed by adding the ending -innen to the singular of the male variant, e.g. die Bäckerinnen and die Schülerinnen.
Keep in mind that, in some cases, the plural comes with an umlauted stem vowel. This applies to the female variant as well.
| singular | plural | |
|---|---|---|
| male | der Koch | die Köche |
| female | die Köchin | die Köchinnen |
You learn one more word like this in this lesson:
There are a few words for people where the grammatical and the natural gender differ. One of them is der Boss. There is no feminine version for it, although there are certainly female bosses.
The prefix ver- often means "away":
Mieten means "to rent" (you pay), while vermieten indicates you rent out (you get the rent).
Hoch is one of the few irregular adjectives in German:
Also, hoch will change when it gets an ending:
Accusative prepositions always trigger the accusative case.
Here are the most common ones: durch, für, gegen, ohne, um
Dative prepositions always trigger the dative case.
Here are the most common ones: aus, außer, bei, gegenüber, mit, nach, seit, von, zu
Two-way prepositions take the dative case or the accusative case, depending on the context.
This is an unusual, but central part of German grammar.
If there's movement from one place to another, use the accusative case.
If there's no movement, or if there's movement within a certain place, use the dative case.
These prepositions can switch case: an, auf, hinter, in, neben, über, unter, vor, zwischen
Two-way prepositions are very common in everyday speech, so it's a good idea to practice them to fluency.
However, don't forget that for some prepositions, you don't have to decide:
Durch and um will always be accusative, although they might signify an activity without location change:
Aus, von, zu will always be dative, although they might signify a location change.
Some verbs use one of these prepositions in a way that is not about location. This is part of language change, where things get repurposed all the time.
Über will always trigger the accusative case:
When used with these verbs, vor will always trigger the Dative:
An, in and auf are more complicated: in some verbs, they trigger the accusative, in others the dative. You'll just have to memorize these.
Er arbeitet an einem Film (He's working on a film.)
Ich warte auf den Bus. (I'm waiting for the bus.)
Some prepositions and articles can be contracted.
| an + das | ans |
|---|---|
| an + dem | am |
| auf + das | aufs |
| bei + dem | beim |
| in + das | ins |
| in + dem | im |
| hinter + das | hinters |
| über + das | übers |
| um + das | ums |
| unter + das | unters |
| von + dem | vom |
| vor + das | vors |
| zu + dem | zum |
| zu + der | zur |
If you would use "that" in English, you would not use a contraction:
An important part of German grammar is that some verbs can split off their prefix. This often ends up at the end of a sentence. Some of these prefixes look exactly like a preposition.
So when you see a "preposition" at the end of a sentence, try to combine it with the verb. You might just have learned a new word :)
Sie macht die Lampe an. (anmachen means "turn on" here)
Ich denke nach. (nachdenken means "to think")
Pass auf dich auf! (aufpassen means "to take care")
Wann fährt der Zug ab? (abfahren means "to depart")
Nimm deinen Hut ab! (abnehmen means "to take off" in this context)
Unfortunately, the way Duolingo is built does not allow to selectively teach German sentence structure. We hope this will change soon :)
Zu Hause means at home, and nach Hause means home (homewards, not at home). The -e at the end of zu Hause and nach Hause is an archaic dative ending, which is no longer used in modern German, but survives in certain fixed expressions.
Ich bin zu Hause. (I am at home.)
Ich gehe nach Hause. (I am walking home.)
Auf Wiedersehen is a rather formal way of saying "goodbye":
However, it literally means "see you again", so it cannot be used over the phone. Instead, German uses auf Wiederhören (hear you again):
Unlike in English, Information can be singular or plural:
Both das Gleis and der Bahnsteig are used for English "station platform". Gleis can also be the rail tracks themselves.
English uses "visa" (from a Latin adjective) for the singular. German uses the singular Visum for one visa, and the plural Visa (or alternatively Visen) for several visas. Due to globalization, this is currently in flux, with many Germans using the English "ein Visa, zwei Visas".
In English, there are two systems for making comparisons:
German only uses the first system:
This is pretty straightforward. However, quite often, the vowel of short adjectives will get an umlaut change:
| normal | comparative | superlative |
|---|---|---|
| alt (old) | älter | am ältesten |
| groß (big) | größer | am größten |
| oft (often) | öfter | am öftesten |
You might notice that there will be an extra e in the superlative, if the word stem ends in t (or d). This is a general sound rule, just like in ich arbeite, er arbeitet.
In addition, in some adjectives an e gets lost:
Again, this is a general sound rule. You might have noticed it for euer (plural your), which becomes eure, not euere when it gets an ending.
There is a small number of irregular forms:
| normal | comparative | superlative |
|---|---|---|
| gut (good) | besser | am besten |
| viel (much) | mehr | am meisten |
| gern (to like) | lieber | am liebsten |
| hoch (high) | höher | am höchsten |
Consider these examples:
As you can see, comparative adjectives get adjective endings, just like any "normal" adjective.
This can sometimes look a bit confusing:
In the second example, the first -er is for the comparative, the second -er is the ending from der Bruder.
If you find that really confusing, why not practice adjective endings a bit? :) You can do so in the earlier lesson "Colors".
Just as gern(e) and allein(e), when used as an adverb, lange can omit the -e, without any change in meaning:
Wissen is not a modal verb, but its forms resemble one:
| Person | wissen |
|---|---|
| ich | weiß |
| du | weißt |
| er/sie/es | weiß |
| wir | wissen |
| ihr | wisst |
| sie/Sie | wissen |
English speakers often confuse wissen with kennen, because both translate to "to know":
Kennen is generally used to express familiarity: you know it exists, or how it is.
Wissen is generally used for facts. It often is used together with verbs (you will learn that later on in this course).
Nouns ending -ei are
Place names ending in -ei will thus have an article:
The use of gefallen is unusual:
Here, what is liked is the subject (the song), while the person liking it is the dative object. Think "The song is pleasurable to me."
This is mostly used for outward appearance, or style.
A Handtuch is a towel, not a hand towel. Of course, a towel can be a hand towel, but this does not mean that the two words are interchangeable. A pet can be a dog, but this does not mean that the words "pet" and "dog" are interchangeable.
Die Küche (the kitchen) and der Kuchen (the cake) are often confused by learners. To German ears, they sound quite different. One reason is that in Küche, the vowel is short, while the vowel in Kuchen is long.
| singular | plural |
|---|---|
| die Küche | die Küchen |
| der Kuchen | die Kuchen |
Kochen (to cook) also has a short vowel.
Schmecken is very similar to the English word "to taste":
In addition, schmecken can be used by itself:
Müsli originally refers to "Bircher Müesli", a Swiss breakfast dish, based on rolled oats and fresh or dried fruits.
Nowadays, people will use it for all kinds of cereals or granola, often with high sugar content.
Hähnchen usually refers to a chicken that has been turned into a dish. While derived from the word for "male chicken" (der Hahn), the only distinction today is that it is a food item.
Remember that words ending in -chen are always neuter: das Hähnchen.
Salat can refer to the dish, as well as to the green leaves (usually lettuce) that often go into it.
Das Lebensmittel (though normally used in plural) refers to anything that can be eaten or drunk.
The French word for French fries (which are actually from Belgium) is "pommes frites" (literally "fried apple" - don't ask :). German took this, and pronounces it the French way (without the -es). However, in common language, it got shortened to either "Pommes" or "Fritten", which are pronounced like regular German words.
A short word on the audio that goes with the sentences: these are recordings of a computer voice, and sometimes off. Please report any errors! But experience shows that it can take a long time for these to get corrected (there's nothing we, the course creators, can do about it).
Die Scheibe (slice) is mostly used for bread, cheese and sausage, but also for window panes. Otherwise, use das Stück (piece):
Many European languages use so-called "reflexive verbs". Think of "I see myself in the mirror". In the same way, German would say:
We teach these in more depth later on, but here is a list of pronouns that are used for them here:
| Nom. | Acc. | Acc. reflexive |
|---|---|---|
| ich | mich | mich |
| du | dich | dich |
| er | ihn | sich |
| es | es | sich |
| sie | sie | sich |
| wir | uns | uns |
| ihr | euch | euch |
| sie/Sie | sie/Sie | sich |
Notice how they are the same as the normal accusative pronouns, with one difference: All third persons will just use sich.
The reflexive verbs taught here are:
Reflexive verbs should generally be learned together with the preposition they use.
One way to say "because" in German is denn:
This is straightforward. However, German more commonly uses weil instead, which you will learn soon. Weil is harder to use, because it changes the position of the verb. But if you always use denn, your German will sound slightly stiff.
A common way to create nouns from adjectives is to add -heit or -keit to them. These will always be feminine.
Wieder means again:
German often uses schon wieder instead, to stress that something happened "again and again", or that it already happened again.
Erlauben means "to allow". It takes the dative:
It's time for a little celebration: you have now covered all the material for the A1 level of German! That means you have encountered all the words and grammatical structures for the Beginner level.
According to the CEFR standard, there are six levels (A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, C2). Duolingo aims to teach up to B1, where you can deal with most simple situations in daily life.
Of course, just by arriving at this point does not mean you have now mastered all the material! Go back to the previous skills, try to level up, check the Tips & Notes again.
Also, try to find other ways to practice German. You could find a language exchange; or you could find material online or in your library.
The remaining course does not conform to CEFR so far. We are working on it though!
Please be sure to leave feedback in the forum, and in the sentence discussions, so we can continue to improve this course.
Here are three common endings, which sound very similar:
The first two sound the same in regular speech (in some dialects, all three sound the same). You already encountered this with the numbers (zwanzig).
When you add an ending to the -ig adjectives, it will no longer sound like ch:
-bar often corresponds to "-(a)ble" in English:
Yes, there are lots of bars with joke adjective names in Germany :)
These correspond to English "-less" and "-ful".
In English, the "-tion" ending is pronounced "-shen". In German, it always becomes "-tsion". It will always be the emphasized syllable, and the word will always be feminine.
Similarly, der Patient will sound like "der Patsient".
When nouns ending in -tion are used in an adjective, the ending -al (or -ell) will be used. The resulting adjective will be pronounced on the last syllable:
Wissen and kennen both translate to "to know" in English. Können (to be able to) can also mean "to know" in certain contexts.
So how to know which one to use?
Kennen is used when talking about people, places and the like. It means that you are aware of its existence. Kennen needs an object.
Wissen is used for knowledge about something. It usually does not have an object. Commonly, it is used with a subordinate clause ("Nebensatz"):
In rare cases, wissen can be used with an object, which might lead to very subtle situations like this:
In the first example, you have never seen this word before. In the second example, you have seen it, but you don't know what it means.
Können generally means "be able to", and is generally used like "can/be able to" in English. The only confusing thing is that it can take a language instead of an infinitive, which English cannot:
We already used a range of verbs that change the vowel in the second and third person singular:
| person | fahren | lesen | essen |
|---|---|---|---|
| ich | fahre | lese | esse |
| du | fährst | liest | isst |
| er/sie/es | fährt | liest | isst |
| wir | fahren | lesen | essen |
| ihr | fahrt | lest | esst |
| sie/Sie | fahren | lesen | essen |
You also encountered modal verbs which generally have a different vowel in singular and plural, respectively. They also have a simpler (and the same) ending in the first and third person singular.
Wissen (to know) is a full verb. However, it is one of the very few full verbs that conjugates like a modal verb:
| pronoun | wollen | mögen | wissen |
|---|---|---|---|
| ich | will | mag | weiß |
| du | willst | magst | weißt |
| er/sie/es | will | mag | weiß |
| wir | wollen | mögen | wissen |
| ihr | wollt | mögt | wisst |
| sie | wollen | mögen | wissen |
You already noticed that in German, some verb prefixes can split off:
The general rule is: if the prefix is stressed, it splits off.
How to know which ones are stressed?
It might be easiest to remember those that are never stressed. The most important ones are:
If you encounter a different prefix, guessing that it splits off will most likely be correct.
So far, you have learned two ways to say "I like".
Mögen is used with nouns:
Gern(e) is an adverb that modifies a verb:
In this lesson, you learn a third way: gefallen.
What's going on?! Literally, it means "He is-pleasing to me." That's why "him" become the subject, and "I" becomes the Dative object in the example above.
Gefallen is normally used if you like the look, sound or feel of something:
Like mögen, you would only use it with nouns (not with verbs).
Earlier, you learned the verb legen:
Liegen is related, but defines a position:
Legen roughly corresponds to "lay", liegen to "lie".
A Handtuch is a towel, not a hand towel. Of course, a towel can be a hand towel, but this does not mean that the two words are interchangeable. A pet can be a dog, but this does not mean that the words "pet" and "dog" are interchangeable.
German normally uses the present tense to indicate the future.
On some occasions (for example when making promises or predictions), German does use a future tense. It is very similar to the one in English.
The future tense consists of a conjugated form of werden in the present tense and an infinitive (the base form of the verb).
| German | English |
|---|---|
| ich werde spielen | I will play |
| du wirst spielen | you will play |
| er/sie/es wird spielen | he/she/it will play |
| wir werden spielen | we will play |
| ihr werdet spielen | you will play |
| sie/Sie werden spielen | they/you will play |
Depending on the context, ich werde spielen translates to "I will play" or "I am going to play". In German, there is no distinction between "will" and "going to".
Be aware that the German verb wollen (to want) is a false friend of the English will:
Using werden can be confusing for learners. However, there are clear distinctions between its three main uses:
If werden is used in combination with an adjective or noun, the meaning will be "to become" or "to get":
The German word bekommen is a confusing false friend to "become":
This case is explained above.
If used in combination with a participle, werden creates one type of passive:
The German word for "to eat" is essen. However, many people use a different word for animals:
The forms of both verbs are the same:
| person | essen | fressen |
|---|---|---|
| ich | esse | fresse |
| du | isst | frisst |
| er/sie/es | isst | frisst |
| wir | essen | fressen |
| ihr | esst | fresst |
| sie/Sie | essen | fressen |
| perf. part. | gegessen | gefressen |
Remember that for most nouns in German, the word determines the gender, not the meaning:
For animals, there is usually a general word with a certain grammatical gender. "Katze" is feminine. That does not mean that the specific cat is necessarily female!
German has specific male/female versions for some of these, but we do not teach them at this point.
Liebling means "darling":
When combined with other nouns, it means "favorite":
Note that German often glues an "s" or an "n" between two noun word parts.
Similar to helfen (to help), danken is part of a small number of verbs that only have a dative object:
Think of "giving help/thanks to" somebody, and you will get it right.
Instead of "to be afraid of", German says "I have fear of":
It is sometimes necessary to learn the preposition together with the verb. Vor takes the dative when used together with Angst haben.
Questions can be asked by switching the subject and verb. For instance,
becomes
These kinds of questions will generally just elicit yes/no answers. In English, the main verb "to be" follows the same principle. "You are hungry." becomes "Are you hungry?".
In German, all verbs follow this principle. There's no do-support.
There are seven W-questions in German:
| English | German |
|---|---|
| what | was |
| who | wer |
| where | wo |
| when | wann |
| how | wie |
| why | warum |
| which | welcher |
Don't mix up wer and wo, which are "switched" in English :)
Some of these will change according to case.
If you ask was with a preposition, the two normally turn into a new word, according to the following pattern:
| English | preposition | wo- |
|---|---|---|
| for what | für | wofür |
| about what | über | worüber |
| with what | mit | womit |
If the preposition starts with a vowel, there will be an extra -r- to make it easier to pronounce.
This wo- prefix does not mean "where".
Wer is declinable and needs to adjust to the cases. The adjustment depends on what the question is targeting.
If you ask for the subject of a sentence (i.e. the nominative object), wer (who) remains as is:
If you ask for the direct (accusative) object in a sentence, wer changes to wen (who/whom). As a mnemonic, notice how wen rhymes with den in den Apfel.
You will soon learn about the Dative case. You have to use wem then. And there is a forth case in German (Genitive). You would use wessen here. This corresponds to English "whose".
The endings look like the endings of der (but don't change with gender/number):
| case | masc. | Form of wer |
|---|---|---|
| nominative | der | wer |
| accusative | den | wen |
| dative | dem | wem |
Welche- words are used to ask about for a specific item out of a group of items, such as "which car is yours?".
This declines not only for case, but also for gender. The endings are the same as for definite articles:
| article | welch* |
|---|---|
| der | welcher |
| das | welches |
| die | welche |
| die (pl.) | welche |
| den | welchen |
In German, you can inquire about locations in several ways.
Wo (where) is the general question word, but if you are asking for a direction in which someone or something is moving, you may use *wohin* (where to).
Consider these examples:
Wo ist mein Schuh? (Where is my shoe?)
Wohin gehst du? (Where are you going (to)?)
Furthermore, wohin is separable into wo + hin:
The same goes for woher (where from):
might become
| English | German |
|---|---|
| where | wo |
| where to | wohin |
| where from | woher |
Wann (when) does not change depending on the case. Wann can be used with conjunctions such as seit (since) or bis (till):
Seit wann wartest du? (Since when have you been waiting?)
Bis wann geht der Film? (Till when does the movie last?).
Don't confuse wann with wenn which you learned in Conjunctions. Both translate to "when" in English, but they have different functions in German.
Wann kommst du? (When are you coming?)
Ich schlafe nicht, wenn ich Musik höre. (I don't sleep when I listen to music)
Warum (why) is also not declinable. It will never change endings. Wieso, Weshalb, and Weswegen can be used instead of Warum. There's no difference in meaning.
Here is an example. All four following sentences mean "Why is the car so old?".
Warum ist das Auto so alt?
Wieso ist das Auto so alt?
Weshalb ist das Auto so alt?
Weswegen ist das Auto so alt?
Wie viel is used with uncountable or countable nouns (how much/how many), and wie viele is only used with countable nouns (how many). Some people think that "wie viel" can only be used with uncountable nouns, but that is not true.
Wie viel Milch trinkst du? (How much milk do you drink?)
Wie viel(e) Tiere siehst du? (How many animals do you see?)
You have already encountered some modal verbs earlier in the course:
| pronoun | wollen | mögen | können |
|---|---|---|---|
| ich | will | mag | kann |
| du | willst | magst | kannst |
| er/sie/es | will | mag | kann |
| wir | wollen | mögen | können |
| ihr | wollt | mögt | könnt |
| sie | wollen | mögen | können |
To help remember the conjugated forms, note that modal verbs are the same in the first and third person singular.
They also often change their vowel. The vowel in the singular will be different from the vowel of the infinitive.
In this lesson, you will learn the remaining modal verbs.
Consider these three - two new modal verbs as compared to the familiar wollen:
| pronoun | müssen | dürfen | wollen |
|---|---|---|---|
| ich | muss | darf | will |
| du | musst | darfst | willst |
| er/sie/es | muss | darf | will |
| wir | müssen | dürfen | wollen |
| ihr | müsst | dürft | wollt |
| sie | müssen | dürfen | wollen |
As in können und wollen, the vowel in the singular is different. The first and third person are the same in the plural and in the singular (unlike normal verbs).
Here are the last two new modal verbs:
| pronoun | sollen | möchten |
|---|---|---|
| ich | soll | möchte |
| du | sollst | möchtest |
| er/sie/es | soll | möchte |
| wir | sollen | möchten |
| ihr | sollt | möchtet |
| sie | sollen | möchten |
sollen does not change its vowel. Its meaning is roughly like "shall".
möchten is unusual. It is actually the subjunctive form of "mögen", which is why it has the same ending system as subjunctive and past tense verbs. You will learn about those later in the course.
If you remember that mögen translates to "like" in English, it makes perfect sense that its subjunctive möchten means "would like to".
As in English, modal verbs are combined with the infinitive of a verb:
Because of the peculiarity of German sentence structure, the infinitive verb will appear at the end in a normal sentence:
A common problem for English speakers learning German is to use müssen right. Here's the problem:
Actually, the problem is in English. Let's look at the same example again, but use "have to" instead:
As you can see, if you think "have to" instead of "must", you'll be fine.
But how to say "must not"?
As you can see, dürfen works pretty much like "may" in English.
The genitive case is used to indicate possession.
Das Fahrrad des Mannes ist schwarz. (The man's bike is black.)
Das Fahrrad des Kindes ist blau. (The kid's bike is blue.)
Das Fahrrad der Frau ist grün. (The woman's bike is green.)
Das Fahrrad der Männer/der Kinder/der Frauen ist rot. (The people's bike is red.)
| masc. | neut. | fem. | plural | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| nom. | der | das | die | die |
| acc. | den | das | die | die |
| dat. | dem | dem | der | den |
| gen. | des | des | der | der |
Das Fahrrad eines Mannes ist schwarz.
Das Fahrrad eines Kindes ist blau.
Das Fahrrad einer Frau ist grün.
| masculine | neuter | feminine | |
|---|---|---|---|
| nominative | ein | ein | eine |
| accusative | einen | ein | eine |
| dative | einem | einem | einer |
| genitive | eines | eines | einer |
Nouns consisting of one syllable tend to add -es in the masculine and neuter. The ending is often reduced to just -s, especially in colloquial speech.
Nouns consisting of more than one syllable, tend to add just -s.
Weak nouns add -n or -en in the genitive as well (all cases but the nominative), e.g. des Jungen and des Studenten. Check the lesson "Dative Case" for a discussion of these nouns.
You can say das Fahrrad des Kindes, but you cannot say des Kindes Fahrrad. The latter word order used to be acceptable hundreds of years ago, and you may still occasionally find it in poetry, but it’s no longer used in contemporary Standard German.
In contrast to common nouns, proper names precede the noun.
Do not add an apostrophe unless the name already ends in -s or -z. In the latter case, the apostrophe comes at the very end of the name.
Adjectives in the genitive case end in -en. The only exception are feminine and plural, without article (feminine without article is quite rare).
| preceded by an article | not preceded by an article | |
|---|---|---|
| masculine | das Fahrrad des/eines großen Mannes | wegen großen Bedarfs |
| feminine | das Fahrrad der/einer kleinen Frau | trotz großer Freude |
| neuter | das Fahrrad des/eines kleinen Kindes | trotz ruhigen Wesens |
| plural (any gender) | das Fahrrad der kleinen Kinder | wegen neuer Informationen |
The most common prepositions that take the genitive case are:
| German | English |
|---|---|
| anstatt | instead of |
| statt | instead of |
| aufgrund | because of |
| trotz | despite |
| während | during |
| wegen | because of |
In colloquial speech, some prepositions that traditionally take the genitive tend to take the dative nowadays.
There’s a small set of verbs that take the genitive. Most of them are not used a lot in everyday speech and they may sound a bit stilted.
As an alternative for the genitive, you can often use von followed by the dative case. Here are some examples:
| genitive | dative |
|---|---|
| der Ball der Frau | der Ball von der Frau |
| der Ball des Mädchens | der Ball von dem Mädchen |
| der Ball des Mannes | der Ball von dem Mann |
| der Ball der Kinder | der Ball von den Kindern |
| Peters Ball | der Ball von Peter |
Often, the genitive case will be preferred in written language, with colloquial language going more for the dative case.
Surprise! There's another way of addressing people. The good news is: it's super easy. Just use the "they" forms when talking to people you're not close with.
Need more details? Then read on :)
In English, "you" can be either singular or plural, and no distinction is made between formal and informal. In German, there are three ways of saying "you".
If you are familiar with someone, you use du (which is called "duzen"). For example, if you talk to your mother, you would say:
Use this form for family members, co-students, children and young adults.
If you refer to more than one person, you use ihr. This is also a "familiar" form, so use it in the same settings as du.
The German ihr you learned earlier is the informal plural of "you," like in
If you are not familiar with someone or still wish to stay formal and express respect, you use Sie (so-called "siezen"). For example, you would always address your professor like this:
Sie is also used for multiple people. But you can't translate it well with "you all" or "you guys", because that would sound too informal.
Here are the three forms of "you", and "they" for comparison:
| English person | ending | German example |
|---|---|---|
| you (singular informal) | -st | du trinkst |
| you (plural informal) | -t | ihr trinkt |
| you (formal) | -en | Sie trinken |
| they | -en | sie trinken |
When spoken, "they" and formal "you" are identical. So, in a way, Germans formally address people like "How are they today?"
You can distinguish the formal Sie from the plural sie (they) because the formal Sie will always be capitalized. However, it will remain ambiguous at the beginning of written sentences.
For instance, Sie sind schön. can either refer to a beautiful individual or a group of beautiful people. The verbs for sie (they) and Sie (you) are conjugated the same. On Duolingo, either should be accepted unless the context suggests otherwise. In real life, there's always context. Don't worry about misunderstandings.
Fortunately, the verb for sie (she) is different. Sie ist schön. only translates to "She is beautiful." There's no ambiguity.
There are more ways to address people formally in German, but they are not in common use and/or outdated, so we don't support them in this course. You might encounter them in Middle Ages reenactments or so :)
The third person singular was used:
The second person plural was also used, and is still used locally:
As some of the sentences in this skill are shared among multiple skills, you will encounter the informal you in this skill as well. For technical reasons, this cannot be changed at this point. Please do not send a report regarding this issue.
A Student is a university student and a Schüler is a pupil/student at a primary, secondary or high school. Students attending other types of schools such as language or dancing schools may also be called Schüler.
When talking about your or someone else's profession in sentences such as I'm a teacher or She's a judge, German speakers usually drop the indefinite article (ein/eine). It sounds more natural to say Ich bin Lehrer and Sie ist Richterin than Ich bin ein Lehrer and Sie ist eine Richterin. This rule also applies to students.
If you add an adjective, you can't drop the article. Er ist ein schlechter Arzt (He's a bad doctor) is correct, but Er ist schlechter Arzt is not.
Also note that you can't drop the definite article (der/die/das).
The grammatical gender usually matches the biological sex of the person you're referring to, i.e. the word that refers to a male baker is grammatically masculine, and the word that refers to a female baker is grammatically feminine. In the vast majority of cases, the female variant is formed by simply adding the suffix -in to the male variant, e.g. der Bäcker becomes die Bäckerin and der Schüler (the pupil) becomes die Schülerin.
The plural of the female variant is formed by adding the suffix -innen to the singular of the male variant, e.g. die Bäckerinnen and die Schülerinnen.
Keep in mind that, in some cases, the plural comes with an umlauted stem vowel. This applies to the female variant as well, e.g. der Koch becomes die Köche and die Köchin becomes die Köchinnen.
The Perfekt is used to describe past events. In spoken German, the Perfekt is preferred over the Präteritum. Using the Präteritum in normal conversation may sound unnatural or pretentious.
In contrast to the English present perfect, the German Perfekt is not used to describe events that started in the past and are still ongoing. In such cases, German speakers use the present tense:
The following verbs are normally not used in the Perfekt. Use Präteritum instead.
| English | Verb | Präteritum |
|---|---|---|
| to be | sein | ich war |
| to have | haben | ich hatte |
| to know | wissen | ich wusste |
| may | dürfen | ich durfte |
| can | können | ich konnte |
| must | müssen | ich musste |
| shall | sollen | ich sollte |
| want to | wollen | ich wollte |
The Perfekt is formed by combining a conjugated form of haben (to have) or sein (to be) in the present tense with the past participle of the main verb.
The vast majority of verbs take haben (just like in English).
Verbs that indicate a motion normally take sein as a helper verb. Here are some common examples:
| Infinitiv | Perfekt |
|---|---|
| gehen | ich bin gegangen |
| laufen | ich bin gelaufen |
| rennen | ich bin gerannt |
| schwimmen | ich bin geschwommen |
| fliegen | ich bin geflogen |
However, verbs that indicate some other change also take sein:
| Infinitiv | Perfekt |
|---|---|
| aufwachen (wake up) | ich bin aufgewacht |
| einschlafen (fall asleep) | ich bin eingeschlafen |
| sterben (die) | er ist gestorben |
There are a few other verbs, for example
None of these verbs have an object (they are "intransitive"). If they have a variant with an object ("transitive"), they take haben:
Most verbs are regular (these are called "weak"). For these, creating the perfect participle is easy. Just add ge- to the front, and replace the infinitive ending with -(e)t:
German has a number of irregular verbs. Most of these are "strong" verbs. For these, you add ge-, but you add -en. There might be a vowel change involved. Rarely, the change in the word stem is more drastic.
| Infinitiv | Partizip II |
|---|---|
| schlafen | geschlafen |
| trinken | getrunken |
| schwimmen | geschwommen |
| essen | gegessen |
| gehen | gegangen |
While most verbs are weak, many of the most common verbs are strong.
There is a small group of irregular verbs that follow a different system (called "mixed verbs"). Here are most of them:
| Infinitiv | Partizip II |
|---|---|
| wissen | gewusst |
| rennen | gerannt |
| brennen | gebrannt |
| kennen | gekannt |
| denken | gedacht |
| bringen | gebracht |
Once you have the correct form of the basic verb, here are two more rules you need to know:
German verbs have two kinds of prefixes. Some can split off. These are always emphasized:
Verbs like this will have the -ge- between the prefix and the verb stem:
Here are some common prefixes that are always emphasized:
Other prefixes are not emphasized. They never split off. For these (and any other verbs that are not emphasized on the first syllable), do not add a ge- prefix. This includes all verbs that end in -ieren (as these are emphasized at the -ie-).
These prefixes are never emphasized:
A few prefixes might be emphasized or not.
When an adjective comes before a noun, its ending will change according to this noun.
Die Katze ist alt.
Das ist eine alte Katze.
You can think of the adjective endings as "markers", that kind of mark what part of speech the adjective belongs to.
Remember that the nominative case is used for the subject of a sentence. These are the nominative adjectives:
| gender | article | adjective | noun |
|---|---|---|---|
| masc. | der | rote | Hut |
| ein | roter | Hut | |
| neut. | das | rote | Hemd |
| ein | rotes | Hemd | |
| fem. | die | rote | Rose |
| eine | rote | Rose | |
| Plural | die | roten | Schuhe |
| keine | roten | Schuhe | |
| - | rote | Schuhe |
While that might look a bit chaotic, there is not so much going on:
1) Masculine: Either the article, or the adjective must have the -r ending. The same goes for neuter and -s
2) Feminine and Plural end in -e. If you add an article, you also have to add an -n.
Do you remember that quite often, the accusative looks like the nominative? Specifically, only the articles for masculine nouns change.
The same goes for the adjectives. They are the same as for nominative; the only exception is for masculine nouns. The changes are marked in bold in the table below.
3) masculine accusative: adjective ends in -en
| gender | article | adjective | noun |
|---|---|---|---|
| masc. | den | roten | Hut |
| einen | roten | Hut | |
| neut. | das | rote | Hemd |
| ein | rotes | Hemd | |
| fem. | die | rote | Rose |
| eine | rote | Rose | |
| Plural | die | roten | Schuhe |
| keine | roten | Schuhe | |
| - | rote | Schuhe |
Please refer to the previous lessons on adjectives about the endings for nominative and accusative.
Dative, as always, is even simpler.
4) Dative: all adjectives get an -en ending
| gender | article | adjective | noun |
|---|---|---|---|
| masc. | dem | roten | Hut |
| einem | roten | Hut | |
| neut. | dem | roten | Hemd |
| einem | roten | Hemd | |
| fem. | der | roten | Rose |
| einer | roten | Rose | |
| Plural | den | roten | Schuhen |
| keinen | roten | Schuhen | |
| - | roten | Schuhen |
Remember that in dative,
Here are some examples:
There is a rather rare case when dative adjectives do not end in -en.
Rarely, single nouns will be used without any article. This mostly happens in idiomatic expressions.
What happens here is that the ending that would normally be used in the article now ends up on the adjective.
In English, making plurals out of singular nouns is typically as straightforward as adding an -(e)s at the end of the word:
In German, different nouns have different ways of forming the plural.
Generally, you will probably have to memorize the plurals in the beginning. Later on, your brain will notice regular patterns that are not easily explained.
However, there are some major regularities that are very helpful to know. If you apply these, the task of mastering German plurals will become much easier :)
All nouns ending in -e, and most feminine nouns will add an -(e)n ending in the plural.
Most nouns ending in a full vowel will add an -s in the plural.
This does not apply to nouns ending in -e (which is not a full vowel).
Many of these words are of foreign origin. Some other foreign words will also get the -s plural:
There is no change for neuter or masculine nouns that have any of these singular endings:
-chen, -lein, -el, or -er.
das Mädchen, die Mädchen
Some words for close family members will have an umlaut change:
If words with these endings are feminine, the plural will end in -n:
Most German one-syllable nouns will add an -e in their plural form. There might be an umlaut change.
Many other masculine or neuter nouns will need the -er ending, and there may be umlaut changes.
Job descriptions are usually masculine:
To refer to a female, German adds -in:
As you can see, some of these get an umlaut change. The same umlaut change will happen in the plural.
The plural of the masculine forms usually refers to mixed, as well as all-male groups:
If you want to specify that you are talking about a group consisting of women, use the feminine plural forms. These will add -innen in the plural.
Der Weg" (with a long e*) roughly means "the path".
Weg (with a short, open e) roughly means "away".
Here are some examples:
Remember that nominative is used for the subject of a sentence. These are the nominative adjectives:
| gender | article | adjective | noun |
|---|---|---|---|
| masc. | der | rote | Hut |
| ein | roter | Hut | |
| neut. | das | rote | Hemd |
| ein | rotes | Hemd | |
| fem. | die | rote | Rose |
| eine | rote | Rose | |
| Plural | die | roten | Schuhe |
| keine | roten | Schuhe | |
| - | rote | Schuhe |
While that might look a bit chaotic, there is not so much going on:
1) masculine: Either the article, or the adjective must have the -r ending. The same goes for neuter and -s.
2) Feminine and Plural end in -e. If you add an article, you also have to add an -n.
Ein Student is a university student and a Schüler is a pupil/student at a primary, secondary or high school. Students attending other types of schools such as language or dancing schools may also be called Schüler.
When talking about your or someone else's profession in sentences such as I'm a teacher or She's a judge, German speakers usually drop the indefinite article (ein/eine).
It sounds more natural to say Ich bin Lehrer and Sie ist Richterin than Ich bin ein Lehrer and Sie ist eine Richterin. This rule also applies to students.
If you add an adjective, you can't drop the article. Er ist ein schlechter Arzt (He's a bad doctor) is correct, but Er ist schlechter Arzt is not.
Also note that you can't drop the definite article (der/die/das).
The grammatical gender usually matches the biological sex of the person you're referring to.
So the word that refers to a male baker is grammatically masculine, and the word that refers to a female baker is grammatically feminine.
In the vast majority of cases, the female variant is formed by simply adding the suffix -in to the male variant, e.g. der Bäcker becomes die Bäckerin and der Schüler (the pupil) becomes die Schülerin.
The plural of the female variant is formed by adding the ending -innen to the singular of the male variant, e.g. die Bäckerinnen and die Schülerinnen.
Keep in mind that, in some cases, the plural comes with an umlauted stem vowel. This applies to the female variant as well.
| singular | plural | |
|---|---|---|
| male | der Koch | die Köche |
| female | die Köchin | die Köchinnen |
You learn one more word like this in this lesson:
There are a few words for people where the grammatical and the natural gender differ. One of them is der Boss. There is no feminine version for it, although there are certainly female bosses.
There are two words spelled damit in German.
One is a combination of a pronoun and a preposition (da+mit). It means "with that".
This word is generally emphasized on the first syllable. As any standard sentence element, if it is used in the first position, the subject will have to go after the verb (which has to be in position 2).
The other is a subordinating conjunction. It translates to "so that":
Because it creates a subordinate clause, the verb of that clause has to go to the end. This version of damit is pronounced at the second syllable.
To remember which is which, remember that the one that's emphasized at the end also sends the verb to the end.
There are at least three ways to express a goal.
The easiest just takes a simple verb:
The verb becomes a noun here, hence the upper-case initial, and the zum (zu+dem) preposition. If a verb turns into a noun, it always gets neuter gender (das Essen, das Lachen).
If you have a more complicated verb complex (for example, with adverbs or objects), you cannot use zum. Use um … zu … instead:
To do this, you start with an infinitive construction:
If you were to use this in a sentence, it would look like this:
The um goes to the beginning of the infinitive construction. The zu goes where the verb part (in the above example, kaufen) splits off.
If your main sentence has a different subject than your goal, you can't use an infinitive. Use damit, which comes with a subordinate clause.
Read the section "damit vs. damit" for more information on how to use it.
Many prepositions can be combined with wo- and da-. Da roughly translates to "that" here, wo normally to "what" (not "where" which is its normal meaning).
| wo- | da- |
|---|---|
| woran | daran |
| worauf | darauf |
| woraus | daraus |
| wobei | dabei |
| wodurch | dadurch |
| wofür | dafür |
| wogegen | dagegen |
| wohinter | dahinter |
| worin | darin |
| womit | damit |
| wonach | danach |
| worum | darum |
| worüber | darüber |
| worunter | darunter |
| wovon | davon |
| wovor | davor |
| wozu | dazu |
| wozwischen | dazwischen |
If the preposition starts with a vowel, there will be a binding r. So worum is pronounced wo-rum (not wor-um).
Das Kleid means "the dress", and die Kleider means "the dresses", but the plural die Kleider can also mean "clothes" or "clothing". In most cases, "clothing" (or "clothes") translates to Kleidung (usually uncountable), but it's important to be aware that Kleider can be used in that sense as well.
Both Hose and Hosen translate to "pants" ("trousers" in British English), but they're not interchangeable. The singular Hose refers to one pair of pants, and the plural Hosen refers to multiple pairs of pants.
Obwohl translates to "although", while trotzdem translates to "however/nevertheless".
Trotzdem is an adverb. It is part of a sentence and will replace the subject if it appears in the first position.
Obwohl is a subordinating conjunction. It will send the verb to the last position. See the lesson "Conjunctions" for more details.
These three adverbs are synonymous. They can be used interchangeably.
The conjunctions weil and denn are used in the form "Statement, weil/denn Reason".
Darum and its sisters are used in the form "Reason, darum Statement" (or "Statement, darum Result").
Many prepositions can be combined with wo- and da-. Da roughly translates to "that" here, wo normally to "what" (not "where" which is its normal meaning).
| wo- | da- |
|---|---|
| woran | daran |
| worauf | darauf |
| woraus | daraus |
| wobei | dabei |
| wodurch | dadurch |
| wofür | dafür |
| wogegen | dagegen |
| wohinter | dahinter |
| worin | darin |
| womit | damit |
| wonach | danach |
| worum | darum |
| worüber | darüber |
| worunter | darunter |
| wovon | davon |
| wovor | davor |
| wozu | dazu |
| wozwischen | dazwischen |
If the preposition starts with a vowel, there will be a binding r. So worum is pronounced "wo-rum", not "wor-um".
The Präteritum (also called Imperfekt) is used to describe past events. Its use is mostly limited to formal writing and formal speech. In informal writing and speech, the Perfekt (e.g. Ich habe geschlafen) tends to be preferred. Using the Präteritum in normal conversation may sound unnatural or pretentious.
The following verbs are normally not used in the Perfekt. Use Präteritum instead.
| English | Verb | Präteritum |
|---|---|---|
| to be | sein | ich war |
| to have | haben | ich hatte |
| to know | wissen | ich wusste |
| may | dürfen | ich durfte |
| can | können | ich konnte |
| must | müssen | ich musste |
| shall | sollen | ich sollte |
| want to | wollen | ich wollte |
The verb möchten (would like to/to want to), which is technically the subjunctive of mögen, does not have a preterite form. Instead, the preterite of wollen (to want [to]) is used.
The Präteritum of regular weak verbs is formed by adding -(e)te, -(e)test, -(e)ten, or -(e)tet to the stem.
sagen (to say)
| Present | Präteritum |
|---|---|
| ich sage (I say) | ich sagte (I said) |
| du sagst (you say) | du sagtest (you said) |
| er/sie/es sagt (he/she/it says) | er/sie/es sagte (he/she/it said) |
| wir sagen (we say) | wir sagten (we said) |
| ihr sagt (you say) | ihr sagtet (you said) |
| sie/Sie sagen (they/you say) | sie/Sie sagten (they/you said) |
Some weak verbs, although generally regular, have a slightly irregular verb stem in the Präteritum. These are mostly modal verbs. Be sure not to use the umlaut in the Präteritum for these, as that will change it to the Konjunktiv II (subjunctive) mood.
The endings will be the same as for other weak verbs.
To form the Präteritum of strong verbs, you need to find the modified verb stem first. Google "German irregular verbs" to get a list.
To this modified stem, you add the following endings:
| Person | Ending |
|---|---|
| ich | - |
| du | -st |
| er/sie/es | - |
| wir | -en |
| ihr | -t |
| sie/Sie | -en |
Notice that these are the same endings as for the modal verbs in the present tense. First and third person are the same in singular and plural.
finden (to find)
| Present | Präteritum |
|---|---|
| ich finde (I find) | ich fand (I found) |
| du findest (you find) | du fandest (you found) |
| er/sie/es findet (he/she/it finds) | er/sie/es fand (he/she/it found) |
| wir finden (we find) | wir fanden (we found) |
| ihr findet (you find) | ihr fandet (you found) |
| sie/Sie finden (they/you find) | sie/Sie fanden (they/you found) |
sein (to be)
| Present | Präteritum |
|---|---|
| ich bin (I am) | ich war (I was) |
| du bist (you are) | du warst (you were) |
| er/sie/es ist (he/she/it is) | er/sie/es war (he/she/it was) |
| wir sind (we are) | wir waren (we were) |
| ihr seid (you are) | ihr wart (you were) |
| sie/Sie sind (they/you are) | sie/Sie waren (they/you were) |
Obwohl translates to "although", while trotzdem translates to "however/nevertheless".
Trotzdem is an adverb. It is part of a sentence and will replace the subject if it appears in the first position.
Obwohl is a subordinating conjunction. It will send the verb to the last position. See the lesson "Conjunctions" for more details.
These three adverbs are synonymous. They can be used interchangeably.
The conjunctions weil and denn are used in the form "Statement, weil/denn Reason".
Darum and its sisters are used in the form "Reason, darum Statement" (or "Statement, darum Result").
Many prepositions can be combined with wo- and da-. Da roughly translates to "that" here, wo normally to "what" (not "where" which is its normal meaning).
| wo- | da- |
|---|---|
| woran | daran |
| worauf | darauf |
| woraus | daraus |
| wobei | dabei |
| wodurch | dadurch |
| wofür | dafür |
| wogegen | dagegen |
| wohinter | dahinter |
| worin | darin |
| womit | damit |
| wonach | danach |
| worum | darum |
| worüber | darüber |
| worunter | darunter |
| wovon | davon |
| wovor | davor |
| wozu | dazu |
| wozwischen | dazwischen |
If the preposition starts with a vowel, there will be a binding r. So worum is pronounced "wo-rum", not "wor-um".
Das Gewitter refers to bad weather with lightning and thunder, not necessarily to strong winds. Hence, we do not accept the translation "storm" in this course.
In German, every vowel can be long or short. The short one often sounds more open than the long one.
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is given for the geeks among you :) But you can also copy/paste one of these symbols into Wikipedia to get an in-depth explanation of it (with sound!).
| vowel | short | IPA | long | IPA |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| a | Mann | /a/ | Bahn | /aː/ |
| ä | Bälle | /ɛ/ | Käse | /ɛː/ |
| e | rennen | /ɛ/ | Beere | /eː/ |
| i | Mitte | /ɪ/ | ziehen | /iː/ |
| o | oft | /ɔ/ | ohne | /oː/ |
| ö | Hölle | /œ/ | schön | /øː/ |
| u | Mutter | /ʊ/ | Buch | /uː/ |
| ü | Müll | /ʏ/ | Bücher | /yː/ |
You can also google "german sounds" for a longer introduction to German sounds.
German has a range of spelling convention which will clearly show whether a vowel is short or long:
A vowel before a double consonant will be short:
Note that instead of "zz" (which only occurs in the Italian "Pizza"), German uses tz. Instead of "kk", we use ck.
There are also some signals that clearly show the vowel is long.
Sometimes, the vowel will be doubled:
There might be a silent h behind the vowel:
Note that if you read the list above, you should not hear a single h sound. It is geh|en, not ge|hen.
For i, it is more common to have an -e after it (sometimes even -eh):
Again, the h will be silent: Be|zieh|ung, not Be|zie|hung.
But sometimes, there will not be a signal.
The following examples have an unmarked long vowel:
And here are some short ones:
For these, you just have to trust your language feeling, it will normally not be a big problem :)
When an adjective comes before a noun, its ending will change according to this noun.
Die Katze ist alt.
Das ist eine alte Katze.
You can think of the adjective endings as "markers", that kind of mark what part of speech the adjective belongs to.
Remember that the nominative case is used for the subject of a sentence. These are the nominative adjectives:
| gender | article | adjective | noun |
|---|---|---|---|
| masc. | der | rote | Hut |
| ein | roter | Hut | |
| neut. | das | rote | Hemd |
| ein | rotes | Hemd | |
| fem. | die | rote | Rose |
| eine | rote | Rose | |
| Plural | die | roten | Schuhe |
| keine | roten | Schuhe | |
| - | rote | Schuhe |
While that might look a bit chaotic, there is not so much going on:
1) Masculine: Either the article, or the adjective must have the -r ending. The same goes for neuter and -s
2) Feminine and Plural end in -e. If you add an article, you also have to add an -n.
Believe it or not, people still use landline phones, especially in business contexts. A (tele)phone can be a cellphone or a landline phone. The word (tele)phone is to the word cellphone what the word pet is to the word dog, i.e. generic vs. specific.
the tele(phone) = das Telefon
the cellphone (the mobile phone) = das Handy / das Mobiltelefon
Regardless of whether you always refer to your cellphone as a phone, in this course, you will not be able to use (tele)phone/Telefon and cellphone/Handy interchangeably.
Rufen translates to "call":
The word used for calling via phone is anrufen:
Because people used to call the police long before phones existed, German uses rufen for this:
Unlike English, the German word die Information has a singular and a plural form.
Der Fernseher refers to a TV set. Das Fernsehen refers to TV in general.
"Ich bin im Fernseher!" would mean "I'm inside the TV set!".
Why does one split, but not the other?
Sehen is interpreted as a verb by itself. Thus, fern is interpreted as the prefix. Because it is emphasized, it will split off. Because it splits off, the -ge- of the participle will end up inside the word.
Stücken is not a verb. Frühstücken is a verb that was created from the noun das Frühstück. Hence, the first syllable, although emphasized, will not split off.
German normally uses the present tense to indicate the future.
On some occasions (for example when making promises or predictions), German does use a future tense. It is very similar to the one in English.
The future tense consists of a conjugated form of werden in the present tense and an infinitive (the base form of the verb).
| German | English |
|---|---|
| ich werde spielen | I will play |
| du wirst spielen | you will play |
| er/sie/es wird spielen | he/she/it will play |
| wir werden spielen | we will play |
| ihr werdet spielen | you will play |
| sie/Sie werden spielen | they/you will play |
Depending on the context, ich werde spielen translates to "I will play" or "I am going to play". In German, there is no distinction between "will" and "going to".
Be aware that the German verb wollen (to want) is a false friend of the English "will":
Using werden can be confusing for learners. However, there are clear distinctions between its three main uses:
If werden is used in combination with an adjective or noun, the meaning will be "to become" or "to get":
The German word bekommen is a confusing false friend to "become":
This case is explained above.
If used in combination with a participle, werden creates one type of passive:
Die Seite can mean "the side" or "the page", depending on context.
In the context of the internet, it refers to a web page, as well as to a web site.
WLAN is pronounced [ˈveːlaːn] in German. Unfortunately, the computer voice of the German course refuses to acknowledge this, and insists on pronouncing it wrong.
Drucken means "to print". The machine commonly used for that is der Drucker.
Drücken means "to press". Der Drücker may refer to an electric button, or to a hug.
The past perfect is used to describe past events, more specifically events that happened way back in the past or any time before another event in the past.
| past perfect | preterite |
|---|---|
| Ich hatte ihn schon gesehen, | als er mich sah |
| I had already seen him | when he saw me |
The past perfect is formed almost the same way as the Perfekt. The only difference is that the helper verb will be in the past tense:
Ich hatte gegessen. (I had eaten.)
Ich bin geschwommen. (I have swum.)
Refer to the "Perfect" lesson in order to review how to form the perfect participle that goes with it.
The future perfect talks about actions that will have been completed in the future. It's used pretty much like the English future perfect, but it's formed slightly differently.
The future perfect consists of the future tense of the auxiliary verb haben or sein, and the past participle of the main verb.
The vast majority of verbs take haben. Verbs that take sein have to be intransitive, i.e. they can't take an object, and they have to indicate a change of position or condition. sein (to be), bleiben (to stay), and passieren (to happen) take sein even though they don't indicate a change of position or condition.
Please refer to the "Perfect" lesson to review how to form the participle, and for more details on when to use haben or sein.
essen (to eat):
The auxiliary verb that goes with essen is haben. All you need to do is form the future tense of haben (ich werde haben) and add the past participle of the main verb essen (gegessen) to the left of haben.
| German | English |
|---|---|
| ich werde gegessen haben | I will have eaten |
| du wirst gegessen haben | you will have eaten |
| er/sie/es wird gegessen haben | he/she/it will have eaten |
| wir werden gegessen haben | we will have eaten |
| ihr werdet gegessen haben | you will have eaten |
| sie werden gegessen haben | they will have eaten |
| Sie werden gegessen haben | you will have eaten |
gehen (to leave/to go):
The auxiliary verb that goes with gehen is sein. All you need to do is form the future tense of sein (ich werde sein) and add the past participle of the main verb gehen (gegangen) to the left of sein.
| German | English |
|---|---|
| ich werde gegangen sein | I will have left |
| du wirst gegangen sein | you will have left |
| er/sie/es wird gegangen sein | he/she/it will have left |
| wir werden gegangen sein | we will have left |
| ihr werdet gegangen sein | you will have left |
| sie werden gegangen sein | they will have left |
| Sie werden gegangen sein | you will have left |
Der Verein (the r is silent) is something between a club and a society. It is very common in Germany: There are almost 600,000 eingetragene Vereine (publicly registered associations) in Germany. They bear the abbreviation e.V..
A Verein might help the homeless, offer tennis lessons, dance together, among many other activities.
In English, you can say "you can say" or "one can say". In German, man is commonly used for this purpose. It does not imply that only male people are included, think of it like the English "man" as in "mankind".
Grammatically, it works exactly like er:
Ein paar (lowercase p) means a few, some or a couple (of) (only in the sense of at least two, not exactly two!).
Ein Paar (uppercase P) means a pair (of) and is only used for things that typically come in pairs of two, e.g. ein Paar Schuhe (a pair of shoes).
So this is quite similar to English "a couple" (a pair) vs. "a couple of" (some).
Na appears in some short interjections or phrases:
| Example | English | |
|---|---|---|
| naja | "Was ist das Problem?" — "Naja, dein Hund stinkt." | Well… |
| na und | "Dein Hund stinkt." — "Na und?" | so what? |
| na klar | "Stinkt dein Hund?" — "Na klar!" | of course! |
| na sowas | "Dein Hund tanzt" — "Na sowas!" | Oh wow! |
Reflexive verbs are pretty common in many European languages, but in comparison are rather rare in English:
In German, they are more frequent. Sometimes, they make perfect sense:
But often, the reason for using this form is lost in history, and the verb just has to be learned as is:
Remember that verbs often have a "direct object". This will be in the accusative case:
Some verbs have an additional "indirect object", which will be in the dative case:
The reflexive pronoun will take the place of one of these objects.
Because the reflexive part takes up the object, some reflexive verbs need a preposition to go with them. This preposition has to be learned together with the verb.
In most reflexive verbs, the direct object gets replaced by the reflexive pronoun. Thus, use the accusative versions.
If the verb already has a direct (accusative) object, the reflexive pronoun will be in the dative case:
First, consider this example (mich is in the accusative):
In the next example, "die Haare" is the Accusative object. Hence, the reflexive pronoun is in the dative ("mir"):
Here are some verbs with dative reflexive pronouns:
Here is a review of the normal pronouns:
| nom. | acc. | dat. |
|---|---|---|
| ich | mich | mir |
| du | dich | dir |
| er/sie/es | ihn/sie/es | ihm/ihr/ihm |
| wir | uns | uns |
| ihr | euch | euch |
| sie/Sie | sie/Sie | ihnen/Ihnen |
Notice that for wir and ihr, accusative and dative do not differ.
Here are the accusative and dative reflexive pronouns:
| nom. | acc. refl. | dat. refl. |
|---|---|---|
| ich | mich | mir |
| du | dich | dir |
| er/sie/es | sich | sich |
| wir | uns | uns |
| ihr | euch | euch |
| sie/Sie | sich | sich |
The reflexive pronoun for the third person (singular and plural) is sich. Otherwise, they don't differ from their non-reflexive counterparts.
This means that if you see a sentence such as:
It must be a different person: He washes the feet of somebody else. If it were his own feet, the sentence would be:
Die Post has several meanings in German.
It can refer to the mail in your mailbox:
It can also refer to the post office:
Or, it can refer to the mail company (which used to be state run in Germany):
Don't confuse die Fabrik (the manufacturing plant) with the English word "fabric". The former is the place where something is fabricated, the latter is the fabricated product of the world's first manufacturing plants (hence the name).
In addition, die Fabrik is stressed on the last syllable.
In German, the words for "story" and "history" are the same (just as in Spanish).
However, they are used differently. When used with an article, it generally refers to a story:
Most of the time, when referring to history, there won't be an article:
In addition, only "story" will have a plural version:
In German, the singular is Euro and the plural is usually Euro as well. As a rule of thumb, use Euro when talking about a specific amount, e.g. 200 Euro.
In some contexts, the form Euros is used as well. For instance, you can say Euros to refer to individual euro coins, an unquantified amount of euros, or euros as opposed to a different currency, e.g.:
Many native speakers use either plural form regardless of context.
In English, either plural form is perfectly fine. The plural form euro tends to be preferred in the Republic of Ireland, and the plural form euros tends to preferred pretty much anywhere else. Originally, the plural form euro was supposed to be used in official EU documents, but that's no longer the case.
Drucken means "to print". The machine commonly used for that is der Drucker.
Ich muss noch zehn Seiten drucken! (I have to print ten more pages!)
Der Drucker ist kaputt! (The printer is broken!)
Drücken means "to press". Der Drücker may refer to an electric button, or to a hug.
Slightly confusingly, der Druck can refer to "pressure", but also to a "print".
German has four cases. You already learned two so far, nominative and accusative.
Nominative is used for sentence subjects.
Accusative is mostly used for sentence objects. Some prepositions will use accusative, too.
The third important case is "dative".
Here are the first three dative pronouns for you, together with the nominative and accusative counterparts:
| Nom. | Akk. | Dat. |
|---|---|---|
| ich | mich | mir |
| du | dich | dir |
| sie (fem.) | sie | ihr |
As the accusative, the dative case has several functions.
Some prepositions go with dative:
mit, zu, aus, von, bei
Komm mit mir! (Come with me!)
For most verbs, the object is in the accusative case:
A few verbs use the dative instead:
Some verbs have two objects. The one identifying the "other person involved in a transaction" will also be in dative:
These three cases will appear in most sentences, so take your time to get a feeling for them.
There is a fourth case (genitive), but it is not used a lot.
Germans mostly use a system similar to English. There is one important and confusing difference: While English uses "half past seven", German will say "half eight".
| Time | |
|---|---|
| 10:00 | zehn (Uhr) |
| 10:05 | fünf nach zehn |
| 10:15 | viertel nach zehn |
| 10:30 | halb elf |
| 10:45 | viertel vor elf |
| 10:55 | fünf vor elf |
In addition, the 25 and 35 minutes will refer to the half hour:
| Time | |
|---|---|
| 10:25 | fünf vor halb elf |
| 10:35 | fünf nach halb elf |
This colloquial system only uses hours from one to twelve.
German official time uses hours from zero to 24:
| Time | |
|---|---|
| 10:12 | zehn Uhr zwölf |
| 22:50 | zweiundzwanzig Uhr fünfzig |
Similar to English, the imperative omits the pronoun. You will learn more about this later. For now, just remember that to say "Come (on)!", German uses Komm! (not kommst, as you might have suspected).
In German, der Affe may refer to all primates, or to all primates excluding lemurs.
In everyday English, "apes" tend to be distinguished from other primates, most of which are referred to as "monkeys". German does not make this distinction. If you want to refer to apes only, you can use the word Menschenaffen.
Das Kamel is stressed on the last syllable: [kaˈmeːl]. Unfortunately, Duolingo's computer voice has other ideas about this. When you're in Cologne, don't confuse these adorable, but weighty animals with Kamelle ([kaˈmɛlə], caramels traditionally thrown around during Karneval).
Telefonieren does not have an object (it is "intransitive"). Hence, you need a preposition for the other person:
On the other hand, anrufen has an accusative object:
Remember that for the police, you would use rufen (without the an-):
Tauschen generally means to swap, or to change something:
Austauschen or (aus)wechseln mean to exchange/substitute:
Wechseln by itself can also mean "to switch/change":
This is also the word used for changing money:
Drucken means "to print". The machine commonly used for that is der Drucker.
Ich muss noch zehn Seiten drucken! (I have to print ten more pages!)
Der Drucker ist kaputt! (The printer is broken!)
Drücken means "to press". Der Drücker may refer to an electric button, or to a hug.
Slightly confusingly, der Druck can refer to "pressure", but also to a "print".
The conditional mood is mostly used for wishes or unreal situations.
Where English uses would, German uses forms of würde:
| German | English |
|---|---|
| ich würde spielen | I would play |
| du würdest spielen | you would play |
| er/sie/es würde spielen | he/she/it would play |
| wir würden spielen | we would play |
| ihr würdet spielen | you would play |
| sie/Sie würden spielen | they/you would play |
Sometimes, English uses special forms for the Conditional. These generally look like Simple Past forms:
In German, these two forms are also similar. However, German normally adds an umlaut change (and occasional -e):
| person | Präteritum | Conditional |
|---|---|---|
| ich | war | wäre |
| du | warst | wär(e)st |
| er/sie/es | war | wäre |
| wir | waren | wären |
| ihr | wart | wär(e)t |
| sie/Sie | waren | wären |
Apart from the sein, haben and the modal verbs, only a few verbs are still conjugated directly. For most verbs, this is now unusual, and considered old-fashioned. Use würde + infinitive instead.
To show you the pattern, here are the forms for haben (to have), dürfen (may) and geben (to give):
| person | haben | dürfen | geben |
|---|---|---|---|
| (Präteritum: ich) | (hatte) | (durfte) | (gab) |
| ich | hätte | dürfte | gäbe |
| du | hättest | dürftest | gäbst |
| er/sie/es | hätte | dürfte | gäbe |
| wir | hätten | dürften | gäben |
| ihr | hättet | dürftet | gäbt |
| sie/Sie | hätten | dürften | gäben |
For the other modal verbs, the forms for ich are:
Here are some other verbs that use their own form for the Conditional:
Again, for most other verbs, use würde + infinitive.
There are several ways to talk about equations:
These are all equivalent (ha!).
Die Party, an English loanword, refers to a celebration.
A political party will be die Partei.
When an adjective comes before a noun, its ending will change according to this noun.
Die Katze ist alt.
Das ist eine alte Katze.
You can think of the adjective endings as "markers", that kind of mark what part of speech the adjective belongs to.
Remember that Nominative is used for the subject of a sentence. These are the nominative adjectives:
| gender | article | adjective | noun |
|---|---|---|---|
| masc. | der | rote | Hut |
| ein | roter | Hut | |
| neut. | das | rote | Hemd |
| ein | rotes | Hemd | |
| fem. | die | rote | Rose |
| eine | rote | Rose | |
| Plural | die | roten | Schuhe |
| keine | roten | Schuhe | |
| - | rote | Schuhe |
While that might look a bit chaotic, there is not so much going on:
1) Masculine: Either the article, or the adjective must have the -r ending. The same goes for neuter and -s.
2) Feminine and Plural end in -e. If you add an article, you also have to add an -n.
Do you remember that quite often, the accusative looks like the nominative? Specifically, only the articles for masculine nouns change.
The same goes for the adjectives. The accusative endings are the same as for Nominative; the only exception is for masculine nouns. The changes are marked in bold in the table below.
3) Masculine accusative: adjective ends in -en
| gender | article | adjective | noun |
|---|---|---|---|
| masc. | den | roten | Hut |
| einen | roten | Hut | |
| neut. | das | rote | Hemd |
| ein | rotes | Hemd | |
| fem. | die | rote | Rose |
| eine | rote | Rose | |
| Plural | die | roten | Schuhe |
| keine | roten | Schuhe | |
| - | rote | Schuhe |
Dative, as always, is even simpler.
4) Dative: all adjectives get an -en ending
| gender | article | adjective | noun |
|---|---|---|---|
| masc. | dem | roten | Hut |
| einem | roten | Hut | |
| neut. | dem | roten | Hemd |
| einem | roten | Hemd | |
| fem. | der | roten | Rose |
| einer | roten | Rose | |
| Plural | den | roten | Schuhen |
| keinen | roten | Schuhen | |
| - | roten | Schuhen |
Remember that in dative,
Conditional Perfect works just as normal Perfect, but uses the conditional form of haben instead. So,
becomes
For verbs that use sein instead, use the conditional form of sein:
becomes
Be aware that in some verbs, such as behalten, verlassen, erfahren, the Participle looks like the Infinitive. Don't let that confuse you, always use the Participle!
A Student is a university student and a Schüler is a pupil/student at a primary, secondary or high school. Students attending other types of schools such as language or dancing schools may also be called Schüler.
When talking about your or someone else's profession in sentences such as I'm a teacher or She's a judge, German speakers usually drop the indefinite article (ein/eine). It sounds more natural to say Ich bin Lehrer and Sie ist Richterin than Ich bin ein Lehrer and Sie ist eine Richterin. This rule also applies to students.
If you add an adjective, you can't drop the article. Er ist ein schlechter Arzt (He's a bad doctor) is correct, but Er ist schlechter Arzt is not.
Also note that you can't drop the definite article (der/die/das).
The grammatical gender usually matches the biological sex of the person you're referring to, i.e. the word that refers to a male baker is grammatically masculine, and the word that refers to a female baker is grammatically feminine. In the vast majority of cases, the female variant is formed by simply adding the suffix -in to the male variant, e.g. der Bäcker becomes die Bäckerin and der Schüler (the pupil) becomes die Schülerin.
The plural of the female variant is formed by adding the suffix -innen to the singular of the male variant, e.g. die Bäckerinnen and die Schülerinnen.
Keep in mind that, in some cases, the plural comes with an umlauted stem vowel. This applies to the female variant as well, e.g. der Koch becomes die Köche and die Köchin becomes die Köchinnen.
Machen (to do) is a very versatile word. Often, when you don't know the word for an action, you can somehow use machen do describe it. Often, there is even an existing word combination:
Here are some examples. The "higher-level" word is in brackets.
As a fallback, it can help you to just continue speaking, even when you run the risk making up your own words:
As a general rule: It's better to speak bad German, than to stop speaking, just because you don't know how to say it well. Keep going, and learn from your mistakes.
Fake it, till you make it :)
Plastik is one of the few words that changes meaning, depending on which gender it is.
In English, "wood" can refer to a material, and to a forest.
In German, Holz only refers to the material. Der Wald is "the forest". We also have a word der Forst, but it only refers to a maintained forest (something like a garden for trees), where the trees are grown for commercial purposes.
Here are three common endings, which sound very similar:
The first two sound the same in regular speech (in some dialects, all three sound the same). You already encountered this with the numbers (zwanzig).
When you add an ending to the -ig adjectives, it will no longer sound like ch:
-bar often corresponds to "-(a)ble" in English:
Yes, there are lots of bars with joke adjective names in Germany :)
These correspond to English "-less" and "-ful".
In English, the "-tion" ending is pronounced "-shen". In German, it always becomes "-tsion". It will always be the emphasized syllable, and the word will always be feminine.
Similarly, der Patient will sound like "der Patsient".
When nouns ending in -tion are used in an adjective, the ending -al (or -ell) will be used. The resulting adjective will be pronounced on the last syllable:
The comparative for short words in English is commonly formed by adding -er to the adjective:
German works in the same way. Of course, you then have to add the correct adjective ending to the whole thing:
For longer adjectives, English uses "more" instead. German does not do that.
Short adjectives usually get an umlaut change, though:
Remember that gern is an adverb. German uses it to describe things it likes. It has the comparative lieber:
In English, you can say:
In German, you would instead say:
First, as it is still ongoing, the present tense is used.
Second, German uses seit for stretches of time that reach into the present. That means you can only use it for things that are still ongoing.
If seit is combined with a noun, it takes the dative. Remember that in dative plural, the noun gets an extra -n:
In English, "early, mid, late" refers to positions in a day, month, or year:
In German, Anfang, Mitte, Ende can be used like this:
These can also be used for age:
Please refer to the lesson "Comparisons" for a table of comparative and superlative forms, especially how to form the irregular forms.
In the last lesson, you learned the comparative:
As in English, there is also a superlative:
Der Papagei ist am ältesten. (The parrot is the oldest.)
Sie rennt am schnellsten. (She runs the fastest.)
Am ältesten works like an adverb (How is he? - the oldest; How does she run? the fastest). That means its endings will never change.
Like in English, you can also use superlatives as adjectives.
Remember that adjectives change their endings according to the noun, if they come before the noun:
Now, consider these two sentences:
Both translate to "My dog is the oldest", and both are possible in German. The last one is more common though, and we recommend you only use this one for now.
On the other hand, you cannot say:
This is because you can't put an adverb in front of a noun. That's what adjectives are for.
Don't forget that with adjectives, you have to use the right ending to match with the noun:
As a rough guideline, use a form like die älteste, den ältesten, … before a noun, and am ältesten at the end of a sentence.
The word "ganz" has several functions in German. As an adjective, it means "whole":
As as adverb, it can intensify or de-intensify other words (depending on which other word you use).
Consider "very fast" vs. "quite fast" in English. "Very" is an intensifier, "quite" is a de-intensifier.
Here's a table to get an idea of the problem:
| Intensifies | De-Intensifies |
|---|---|
| schlecht | gut |
| oben | nett |
| vorne | sympathisch |
| früh | schön |
| sicher | interessant |
| toll | gern |
| furchtbar | lustig |
| … | ok |
Consider these examples:
You see the problem :) Ganz is tricky to use for beginners. For now, better use these two words instead:
total (always means "really")
Der Film war total gut. (The film was really nice.)
Plastik is one of the few words that changes meaning, depending on which gender it is.
Germany is a Federal Republic (Bundesrepublik). It consists of 16 federal states, which have some degree of autonomy. These are called Bundesländer.
Die Pension has different meanings, depending on context. Here it means "guest house". It can also mean "retirement pay".
In German, werden + perfect participle forms a passive:
Note that the accusative object of an active sentence (einen Brief) becomes the (nominative) subject of the passive version (ein Brief).
The passive is often used when the original subject is unknown or irrelevant:
Using werden can be confusing for learners. However, there are clear distinctions between its three main uses:
If werden is used in combination with an adjective or noun, the meaning will be "to become" or "to get":
The German word bekommen is a confusing false friend to "become":
Refer to the lesson "Future 2" for details.
If used in combination with a participle, werden creates one type of passive:
Earlier, the weekday started with Sunday:
| English | German |
|---|---|
| Sunday | Sonntag (sun) |
| Monday | Montag (moon) |
| Tuesday | Dienstag (god "Tyr"?) |
| Wednesday | Mittwoch (middle of week) |
| Thursday (Thor!) | Donnerstag (thunder) |
| Friday | Freitag (goddess Freya) |
| Saturday (Saturn) | Samstag (sabbath) |
However, we changed to Monday as the start of the week, which makes Mittwoch sound a bit silly now :)
If you want to say "on Monday" and so on, that would be am Montag.
Here's a mnemonic to remember when to use which:
Accusative prepositions always trigger the accusative case.
Here are the most common ones: durch, für, gegen, ohne, um
Dative prepositions always trigger the dative case.
Here are the most common ones: aus, außer, bei, gegenüber, mit, nach, seit, von, zu
Two-way prepositions take the dative case or the accusative case, depending on the context.
This is an unusual, but central part of German grammar.
If there's movement from one place to another, use the accusative case.
If there's no movement, or if there's movement within a certain place, use the dative case.
These prepositions can switch case: an, auf, hinter, in, neben, über, unter, vor, zwischen
Two-way prepositions are very common in everyday speech, so it's a good idea to practice them to fluency.
However, don't forget that for some prepositions, you don't have to decide:
Durch and um will always be accusative, although they might signify an activity without location change:
Aus, von, zu will always be dative, although they might signify a location change.
Some verbs use one of these prepositions in a way that is not about location. This is part of language change, where things get repurposed all the time.
Über will always trigger the accusative case:
When used with these verbs, vor will always trigger the Dative:
An, in and auf are more complicated: in some verbs, they trigger the accusative, in others the dative. You'll just have to memorize these.
Er arbeitet an einem Film (He's working on a film.)
Ich warte auf den Bus. (I'm waiting for the bus.)
Some prepositions and articles can be contracted.
| an + das | ans |
|---|---|
| an + dem | am |
| auf + das | aufs |
| bei + dem | beim |
| in + das | ins |
| in + dem | im |
| hinter + das | hinters |
| über + das | übers |
| um + das | ums |
| unter + das | unters |
| von + dem | vom |
| vor + das | vors |
| zu + dem | zum |
| zu + der | zur |
If you would use "that" in English, you would not use a contraction:
An important part of German grammar is that some verbs can split off their prefix. This often ends up at the end of a sentence. Some of these prefixes look exactly like a preposition.
So when you see a "preposition" at the end of a sentence, try to combine it with the verb. You might just have learned a new word :)
Sie macht die Lampe an. (anmachen means "turn on" here)
Ich denke nach. (nachdenken means "to think")
Pass auf dich auf! (aufpassen means "to take care")
Wann fährt der Zug ab? (abfahren means "to depart")
Nimm deinen Hut ab! (abnehmen means "to take off" in this context)
Unfortunately, the way Duolingo is built does not allow to selectively teach German sentence structure. We hope this will change soon :)
Zu Hause means at home, and nach Hause means home (homewards, not at home). The -e at the end of zu Hause and nach Hause is an archaic dative ending, which is no longer used in modern German, but survives in certain fixed expressions.
Ich bin zu Hause. (I am at home.)
Ich gehe nach Hause. (I am walking home.)
In some combinations, prepositions are not grammatical. Just learn the whole phrase like a word:
| German | English |
|---|---|
| zu Fuß | on foot |
| zu Mittag | for lunch |
| zu Abend | for dinner |
| zu Hause | at home |
| nach Hause | towards home |
Especially zu Hause is often confusing, as in regular use, zu often means towards.
Geben (to give) is one of several verbs that describe a transaction. These generally have two objects:
the indirect object identifies the "other person involved" in a transaction. This object is in the dative case.
Ich gebe einem Kind einen Apfel. (I give a child an apple.)
As in English, the dative "indirect" object comes before the accusative "direct" object.
English can also use "to": "I gave an apple to a child." — this is not possible in German.
Geben is a strong (slightly irregular) verb, here are its forms:
| Person | geben |
|---|---|
| ich | gebe |
| du | gibst |
| er/sie/es | gibt |
| wir | geben |
| ihr | gebt |
| sie/Sie | geben |
| perf. part. | gegeben |
Please refer to lesson "Verbs: Conditional 1" to review to German's "Konjunktiv II" mood. This is normally formed by a form of würden + infinitive:
German has another, lesser used form, the "Konjunktiv I". It is mostly used for marking indirect speech in newspapers:
Therefore, only the third person (singular and plural) is commonly used.
Here are the forms of present tense and past tense (Präteritum), together with the two forms of Konjunktiv, to demonstrate the pattern. Forms in brackets are rarely used:
| person | present | Konj I |
|---|---|---|
| ich | habe | (habe) |
| du | hast | (habest) |
| er/sie/es | hat | habe |
| wir | haben | (haben) |
| ihr | habt | (habet) |
| sie/Sie | haben | (haben) |
| person | Präteritum | Konj II |
|---|---|---|
| ich | hatte | hätte |
| du | hattest | hättest |
| er/sie/es | hatte | hätte |
| wir | hatten | hätten |
| ihr | hattet | hättet |
| sie/Sie | hatten | hätten |
As you can see, Konjunktiv I is sometimes the same as the present tense form. In these cases, German uses the Konjunktiv II form:
Here are some commonly used forms:
Some adjectives can turn into nouns in German. If they do so, they still change endings like any normal adjective:
verwandt (related) — der Verwandte
der deutsche Mann — der Deutsche
… and so on.
Google "german adjectival nouns" for more information.
If you want, now would be a good time to review the adjective endings in earlier lessons :)
Don't confuse adjectival nouns with nouns that follow the "n-declension". (See lesson "Dat. Case" for details)
For example, all other nouns for nationalities that end in -e follow the n-declension:
In English, relative clauses look like this:
In German, relative clauses are subordinate clauses. The verb moves from position 2 to the end.
Relative clauses are always set off by commas from the rest of the sentence.
(There's no distinction between restrictive and non-restrictive clauses.)
The relative pronouns look like the definite articles, with the exception of the dative plural and the genitive forms.
The relative pronouns closely correspond to the personal pronouns they replace:
Das ist der Mann, der einen Hund hat.
Das sind die Bälle. Mit ihnen spielt er. (These are the balls. He plays with them.)
| pers. pronoun | rel. pronoun | grammar |
|---|---|---|
| er | der | masc. (nom.) |
| es | das | neut. (nom.+acc.) |
| sie | die | fem./pl. (nom.+acc.) |
| ihn | den | masc. (acc.) |
| ihm | dem | masc.+neut. (dat.) |
| ihr | der | fem. (dat.) |
| ihnen | denen | pl. (dat.) |
Relative pronouns can never be dropped.
The genitive version derives from the possessive pronoun:
Die Frau, deren Sohn einen Hund hat, ist krank.
Der Mann mag Pizza. Seine Tochter kann singen. (The man likes pizza. His daughter can sing.)
Here, too, the possessive pronouns correspond somewhat to the relative pronouns:
| poss. pronoun | rel. pronoun | grammar |
|---|---|---|
| sein(*) | dessen | masc./neut. |
| ihr(*) | deren | fem./pl. |
Be aware that the relevant case is in the relative clause, not the main clause:
The form you need to use is governed by the grammatical gender and number of the word that is being referred to (outside the relative clause), and the case is governed by the context of the relative clause.
Keep in mind that certain prepositions and verbs always trigger a certain case, e.g. the preposition mit always takes the dative case and so does the verb helfen.
A Wurst is a sausage. It does not specifically refer to any kind of sausage. It could be a salami, chorizo, mortadella, frankfurter, etc.
Bratwurst specifically refers to a fried or grilled sausage.
Indirect questions are subordinate clauses in German:
For questions with a question word, the question word starts the sentece, and the verb ends it.
For yes/no-questions, German uses ob as a placeholder (just like "whether" is used in English):
Je … desto … works roughly like "the … the …" in English:
However, the sentence structure is unusual, when compared to English. For the above sentence, it is:
The je part is a subordinate clause, so the verb will be at the end. Because the je+comparison is in the first position, the subject has to come immediately after, followed by the rest of the sentence.
The desto part is a main clause. The verb is in position 2, and desto+comparison are in the first position. This is not unusual in German, as you can put all kinds of elements in the first position:
| Position 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ich | esse | morgen | mit einem Freund | zu Mittag. |
| Morgen | esse | ich | mit einem Freund | zu Mittag. |
| Mit einem Freund | esse | ich | morgen | zu Mittag. |
| Zu Mittag | esse | ich | morgen | mit einem Freund. |
Notice how the verb is always in the second position. The subject is either at the beginning (the default), or directly behind the verb.
(-)mal can often be translated with "time(s)" in English:
| German | English |
|---|---|
| zehn mal | ten times |
| manchmal | sometimes |
| das erste Mal | the first time |
In addition, it has a function as a "modal particle". These are words that give a sentence an additional flavor, and can't be easily translated. Modal particles are almost never emphasized.
We don't teach modal particles in this course (because you can't translate them). But you will encounter mal schauen in this lesson, which roughly means "let's see".
Der Hals refers to the whole connection between head and shoulders. German does have more specialized words for "neck" and "throat", but we normally use Hals for both.
Das Haar normally refers to a single hair. It can be used to refer to all the hair on someone's head, but is considered slightly outdated or poetic.
Das Bein refers to the leg. It used to mean "bone" a long time ago. This meaning survives in some word combinations:
Der Magen is the stomach, the part of your body that starts digestion. It is not commonly used to refer to the belly (der Bauch).
Die Brust can have several meanings, depending on context.
Use the verb mögen to express that you like something or someone, and use the adverb gern(e) to express that you like doing something.
Ich mag Bier. (I like beer.)
Sie mag Katzen. (She likes cats.)
Wir mögen dich. (We like you.)
Ihr mögt Bücher. (You like books.)
Please refer to lesson "Present 1" for more details on mögen.
Ich trinke gern(e) Bier. (I like to drink beer/I like drinking beer.)
Er spielt gern(e) Fußball. (He likes to play soccer/He likes playing soccer.)
Wir lesen gern(e) Bücher. (We like to read books/We like reading books.)
Sie schreibt gern(e) Briefe. (She likes to write letters/She likes writing letters.)
If you're not sure where to put gern(e): It goes to the same position as oft (often).
What's the difference between gern and gerne? They're just variations of the same word. There's no difference in terms of meaning or style. You can use whichever you like best.
The same goes for allein(e).
Auch corresponds to English "also, too".
The positioning follows different rules in both languages. Soon you will learn more about the peculiarities of German sentence structure. For now, remember that auch takes roughly the same position as nicht. When both occur together, auch will come before nicht.
Consider these two examples to get a first idea about this:
Ich laufe. Du läufst auch. Er läuft nicht. Sie läuft auch nicht.
Ich komme aus China. Du kommst auch aus China. Er kommt nicht aus China. Sie kommt auch nicht aus China.
Here's one more adverb, to see how they work together:
For reasons that will become clearer soon, Sie kommt aus China auch. is not a valid sentence in German.
You learned earlier that the numbers from 1-19 are very similar to those in English.
This mostly continues in German, with one important quirk. Did you ever notice that the digits in numbers 13-19 are kind of "switched" in English? German continues that through to 99.
So 84 would be vier|und|acht|zig (literally, four and eighty).
This might take some getting used to, but at least it's consistent ;)
For "100", people would usually just say hundert, not einhundert (as in English).
There used to be two different systems for huge numbers, called "short scale" and "long scale". Unfortunately, German and American English ended up with different ones. British English used to use the long scale, but switched to short scale.
| Number | US English (short scale) | German (long scale) |
|---|---|---|
| 10^6 | million | Million |
| 10^9 | billion | Milliarde |
| 10^12 | trillion | Billion |
| 10^15 | quadrillion | Billiarde |
| 10^18 | quintillion | Trillion |
(10^6 means a one with six zeros)
When talking about locations in English, you can use here, there, this, and that to express that something is close or far away. In German the word da is commonly used when talking about locations. The good thing about da is, you don't have to worry about the distance! It can mean anything close or far away.
Let's look at a few examples:
With hier (here) and dort (there) you can be more specific about the distance.
You can also say da oben for "up there" and so on:
You can combine all of them with articles, and use them similar to this and that !
Many people use this with the other articles as well. Note that while all of the following constructs are commonly used in spoken language, they are not appropriate for written, formal language.
To refer to one specific thing, you can put a noun between the article and hier/da/dort.
For example:
Some people might add drüben. This translates to over there.
Innen and außen mostly refer to the inside and outside of objects.
Drinnen and draußen are normally only used for rooms (more generally, enclosed spaces that people can be in).
German ordinal numbers are pretty regular. The general rule is:
| number range | ending |
|---|---|
| 1-19 | -te |
| > 19 | -ste |
| Irregular forms | |
|---|---|
| 1. | erste |
| 3. | dritte |
| 7. | siebte |
Ordinal numbers behave like adjectives, so their endings will change accordingly:
Er kennt den ersten Sänger.
Er ist am sechsten August geboren.
Ich bin seine tausendste Lehrerin.
Das Pflaster is a small adhesive bandage.
Depending on where you live, you may call it "Band-Aid", "plaster" or "Elastoplast" in English.
The German word Pflaster does not refer to a plaster cast. The German for plaster cast is der Gips(verband).
In German, every vowel can be long or short. The short one often sounds more open than the long one.
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is given for the geeks among you :) But you can also copy/paste one of these symbols into Wikipedia to get an in-depth explanation of it (with sound!).
| vowel | short | IPA | long | IPA |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| a | Mann | /a/ | Bahn | /aː/ |
| ä | Bälle | /ɛ/ | Käse | /ɛː/ |
| e | rennen | /ɛ/ | Beere | /eː/ |
| i | Mitte | /ɪ/ | ziehen | /iː/ |
| o | oft | /ɔ/ | ohne | /oː/ |
| ö | Hölle | /œ/ | schön | /øː/ |
| u | Mutter | /ʊ/ | Buch | /uː/ |
| ü | Müll | /ʏ/ | Bücher | /yː/ |
You can also google "german sounds" for a longer introduction to German sounds.
German has a range of spelling convention which will clearly show whether a vowel is short or long:
A vowel before a double consonant will be short:
Note that instead of "zz" (which only occurs in the Italian "Pizza"), German uses tz. Instead of "kk", we use ck.
There are also some signals that clearly show the vowel is long.
Sometimes, the vowel will be doubled:
There might be a silent h behind the vowel:
Note that if you read the list above, you should not hear a single h sound. It is geh|en, not ge|hen.
For i, it is more common to have an -e after it (sometimes even -eh):
Again, the h will be silent: Be|zieh|ung, not Be|zie|hung.
But sometimes, there will not be a signal.
The following examples have an unmarked long vowel:
And here are some short ones:
For these, you just have to trust your language feeling, it will normally not be a big problem :)
A Student is a university student and a Schüler is a pupil/student at a primary, secondary or high school. Students attending other types of schools such as language or dancing schools may also be called Schüler.
Careful: a Hochschule is not a high school. Depending on the context, Hochschule is either an umbrella term that comprises Universitäten and Fachhochschulen, or it's a synonym for Fachhochschule.
A Universität is a full research university and a Fachhochschule (often just called Hochschule) is a university with a practical focus that offers Bachelor and Master degrees. PhD programmes may be offered in cooperation with other universities.
In German, the word das Gymnasium refers to a university prep-school.
The German for a sports gym is die Turnhalle (used by schools and sports clubs) or das Fitnessstudio (commercial).
Normally, nouns don't change the stress pattern when they change into the plural:
Nouns ending in -or are an exception. In the plural, the emphasis lands on the -or- syllable.
Just as in English you have "year/yearly", German has the same word pairs. In German, some of these have an umlaut change:
| noun | adjective |
|---|---|
| das Jahr | jährlich |
| der Monat | monatlich |
| der Tag | täglich |
| die Stunde | stündlich |
| die Minute | minütlich |
| die Sekunde | sekündlich |
Why does monatlich not change? All others are emphasized on the syllable that changes. Monatlich is emphasized on the first syllable.
The seasons in German are as follows:
| English | German |
|---|---|
| spring | der Frühling |
| summer | der Sommer |
| autumn | der Herbst |
| winter | der Winter |
Herbst sounds similar to "harvest", and Frühling has früh (early) in it.
When you refer to seasons or months, you use im. Here's the mnemonic again that helps you remind which is which:
German uses a system similar to English:
| English | German | |
|---|---|---|
| morning | der Morgen | am Morgen |
| - | der Vormittag | am Vormittag |
| noon | der Mittag | am Mittag |
| afternoon | der Nachmittag | am Nachmittag |
| evening | der Abend | am Abend |
| night | die Nacht | in der Nacht |
| midnight | die Mitternacht | um Mitternacht |
It's generally pretty straightforward. Remember this mnemonic:
Am Montag, am Mittag. Just "at night there are different rules": in der Nacht and um Mitternacht are irregular.
All of these have an adverbial form:
Similar to Spanish, the words for "tomorrow" and "morning" are the same in German. Unlike Spanish, German escapes this problem by choosing a different word when they clash.
Instead of morgen am Morgen or morgen morgens we say morgen früh.
In German, there are "official" and informal ways to say the time. Here's the official one (often used on radio and television):
Official time uses a 24 hour system, from zero to 24.
Don't confuse "hour" and Uhr (they are false friends):
| English | German |
|---|---|
| the hour | die Stunde |
| o'clock | Uhr |
Die Uhr can also mean "clock" or "watch". Die Stunde can also mean "lesson" (which confusingly might not last one hour).
In everyday life, people will often use informal time.
There are several systems, with two forms dominant. In many parts of Germany, this system is used:
| Time | English | German |
|---|---|---|
| 14:05 | five past two | fünf nach zwei |
| 14:10 | ten past two | zehn nach zwei |
| 14:15 | a quarter past two | Viertel nach zwei |
| 14:20 | twenty past two | zwanzig nach zwei |
| 14:25 | twenty-five past two | fünf vor halb drei |
| 14:30 | half past two | halb drei |
| 14:35 | thirty-five past two | fünf nach halb drei |
| 14:40 | twenty to three | zwanzig vor drei |
| 14:45 | a quarter to three | Viertel vor drei |
| 14:50 | ten to three | zehn vor drei |
| 14:55 | five to three | fünf vor drei |
Yes, the part in the middle is very confusing :) German considers the next hour to be half full. In addition, German relates "X:25" and "X:35" to the half hour.
The words das Gehirn und das Hirn are used more or less interchangeably in German.
Der See means "the lake". Die See means "the sea, the ocean". It is less commonly used. German uses more often das Meer or der Ozean for the latter.
Check out Bodensee and Nordsee on Google Maps and see if you can figure out which one is feminine and which one is masculine :)
Der Strand means "the beach". This meaning still survives in the English adjective "stranded" (literally, ended up on a lonely beach).
In English, "wood" can refer to a material, and to a forest.
In German, Holz only refers to the material. Der Wald is "the forest". We also have a word Der Forst, but it only refers to a maintained forest (something like a garden for trees), where the trees are grown for commercial purposes.
Due to its use as a loanword in English, wunderbar is often overused by English-speaking learners of German. Contrary to popular opinion, most Germans don't run around in leather trousers, smiling broadly and shouting Wunderbar! at each other :)
Think of it as the equivalent to "splendid!". If you want to sound less antiquated, better use Super! or Toll! or something like that.
Most nouns in German for the plural by appending an ending. There might be an umlaut change.
A few loanwords will instead replace the singular ending with a different one:
You will learn more of these in the skill "Business 2".
Most nouns in German get their plural by attaching an ending. There might be an umlaut change:
A few nouns (from Ancient Greek and Latin) will instead replace a singular ending with a different plural ending:
Pants used to be two hoses, until somebody had the idea of stitching them together. Glasses are now joined into one object. If you deconstruct scissors into multiple objects, you have two awkward knives and a screw.
German uses the singular for all of these. Die Hose is "a pair of pants". Die Hosen (plural) is at least two pairs of pants.
Die Stelle has the meaning of "position" in at least two ways. It can be a location, or it can be a job position.
The common German word German for "gift" is das Geschenk. Das Gift means "poison". The reason is that a long time ago, "gift" in the meaning of "something that is given" was used as an euphemism for poison.
The original meaning survives in the word die Mitgift (dowry).
There are two words spelled damit in German.
One is a combination of a pronoun and a preposition (da+mit). It means "with that".
This word is generally emphasized on the first syllable. As any standard sentence element, if it is used in the first position, the subject will have to go after the verb (which has to be in position 2).
The other is a subordinating conjunction. It translates to "so that":
Because it creates a subordinate clause, the verb of that clause has to go to the end. This version of damit is pronounced at the second syllable.
To remember which is which, remember that the one that's emphasized at the end also sends the verb to the end.
There are at least three ways to express a goal.
The easiest just takes a simple verb:
The verb becomes a noun here, hence the upper-case initial, and the zum (zu+dem) preposition. If a verb turns into a noun, it always gets neuter gender (das Essen, das Lachen).
If you have a more complicated verb complex (for example, with adverbs or objects), you cannot use zum. Use um … zu … instead:
To do this, you start with an infinitive construction:
If you were to use this in a sentence, it would look like this:
The um goes to the beginning of the infinitive construction. The zu goes where the verb part (in the above example, kaufen) splits off.
If your main sentence has a different subject than your goal, you can't use an infinitive. Use damit, which comes with a subordinate clause.
Read the section "damit vs. damit" for more information on how to use it.
Many prepositions can be combined with wo- and da-. Da roughly translates to "that" here, wo normally to "what" (not "where" which is its normal meaning).
| wo- | da- |
|---|---|
| woran | daran |
| worauf | darauf |
| woraus | daraus |
| wobei | dabei |
| wodurch | dadurch |
| wofür | dafür |
| wogegen | dagegen |
| wohinter | dahinter |
| worin | darin |
| womit | damit |
| wonach | danach |
| worum | darum |
| worüber | darüber |
| worunter | darunter |
| wovon | davon |
| wovor | davor |
| wozu | dazu |
| wozwischen | dazwischen |
If the preposition starts with a vowel, there will be a binding r. So worum is pronounced wo-rum (not wor-um).
Welcome to the last lesson of this course!
We hope you got a good first impression on how German works and thinks. But your journey should not end here :) Find other speakers, get some learning material, and/or keep using this course.
Wir wünschen dir alles Gute!