Learning German from English
Created: 2014-04-24
Last Goal: 2022-08-07
Timezone: UTC-4
Last update: 2022-08-07 21:54:03 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.
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).
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:
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?).
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.
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:
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.
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:
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.
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) |
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.
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 |
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.
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?)
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.
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 :)
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).
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.
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.
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".
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).
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.
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,
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.
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.
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.)
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:
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).
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:
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.
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.
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).
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).
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.
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.
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.
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".
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:
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
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).
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
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.
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:
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).
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:
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?).
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:
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.
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:
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) |
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.
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 |
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.
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?)
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.
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 :)
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).
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:
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 |
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.