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.

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.

As mentioned in Basics 1, German nouns have one of three genders: feminine, masculine or neuter .

While they sometimes correspond to a natural gender ("der Mann" is male), most often the gender will depend on the word, not on the object it describes. For example, the word "das Mädchen" (the girl) ends in "-chen", hence it is neuter. This is called grammatical gender.

Each gender has its own definite article. Der is used for masculine nouns, das for neuter, and die for feminine. Later in this course you will learn that these might be modified according to "case".

gender	definite (the)	indefinite (a/an)
masculine	der Mann	ein Mann
neuter	das Mädchen	ein Mädchen
feminine	die Frau	eine Frau

Here are the conjugation tables from "Basics 1" (where you can find a more detailed explanation) again.

trinken (to drink)

English person	ending	German example
I	-e	ich trinke
you (singular informal)	-st	du trinkst
he/she/it	-t	er/sie/es trinkt

sein (to be)

English	German
I am	ich bin
you (singular informal) are	du bist
he/she/it is	er/sie/es ist

Just like in English, using or dropping the definite article makes the difference between specific and generic .

I like bread = Ich mag Brot (bread in general)

I like the bread = Ich mag das Brot (specific bread)

A good general rule is to use an article when you would use on in English. If there is none in English, don't use one in German.

There are some slight differences when using a few abstract nouns, but we'll see about that later.

In 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:

• Du bist mein Kind. (You are my child.)

If you are talking to more than one person, use ihr:

• Ihr seid meine Kinder. (You are my children.)

Some English speakers would use "y'all" or "you guys" for this plural form of "you".

Note that these only work for people you are familiar with (friends, family, …). For others, you would use the formal "you", which we teach later in this course. So stay tuned :)

If you're new to German, ihr and er may sound confusingly similar, but there is actually a difference. ihr sounds similar to the English word "ear", and er sounds similar to the English word "air" (imagine a British/RP accent).

Don't worry if you can't pick up on the difference at first. You may need some more listening practice before you can tell them apart. Also, try using headphones instead of speakers.

Learn the pronouns together with the verb endings. This will greatly reduce the amount of ambiguity.

Here is the complete table for conjugating regular verbs:

Example: trinken (to drink)

English person	ending	German example
I	-e	ich trinke
you (singular informal)	-st	du trinkst
he/she/it	-t	er/sie/es trinkt
we	-en	wir trinken
you (plural informal)	-t	ihr trinkt
they	-en	sie trinken

Notice that the first and the third person plural have the same ending.

And here's the complete table for the irregular verb sein (to be):

English	German
I am	ich bin
you (singular informal) are	du bist
he/she/it is	er/sie/es ist
we are	wir sind
you (plural informal) are	ihr seid
they are	sie sind

You will learn about the distinction between "formal" and "informal" later (it's easy).

Commonly used phrases are often shortened versions of a longer sentence. Or they might be leftovers from some old grammar that has otherwise fallen out of use. That means that their grammar might appear strange.

For now, just learn them like you would learn a long word.

There are many ways to ask someone how they are doing. Take "How are you?," "How do you do?" and "How is it going?" as examples. In German, the common phrase or idiom uses the verb gehen (go): Wie geht es dir? (How are you?).

This can be shortened to Wie geht's?.

In German, Willkommen means welcome as in "Welcome to our home", but it does not mean welcome as in "Thank you - You're welcome". The German for the latter is Gern geschehen (or just Gern!) or Keine Ursache.

Sometimes, German words can be a mouthful. Later on, you will find that you can take long words apart, and recognize the meaning from its elements.

Here's an example:

Part	Meaning
ent-	de-
Schuld	guilt
-ig	-y
-gung	noun suffix

So, Entschuldigung literally means something like "deguiltification": "Take the guilt away from me" :)

Duo is the name of Duolingo's mascot (the green owl). He will guide you through this course. If you make him happy, he will make you happy :)

In English, the words "he" and "I" can be used as subjects (the ones doing the action in a sentence), and they change to "him" and "me" when they are objects (the ones the action is applied to). Here's an example:

Subject	Verb	Object
I	see	him
He	sees	me

This is called a grammatical case: the same word changes its form, depending on its relationship to the verb. In English, only pronouns have cases. In German, most words other than verbs (such as nouns, pronouns, determiners, adjectives, etc.) have cases.

You'll learn more about cases later; for now you just need to understand the difference between the two simplest cases: nominative and accusative.

The subject of a sentence (the one doing the action) is in the nominative case. So when we say Die Frau spielt. (The woman plays.), "die Frau" is in the nominative.

The accusative object is the thing or person that is directly receiving the action. For example, in Der Mann sieht den Ball. (The man sees the ball.), der Mann is the (nominative) subject and den Ball is the (accusative) object.

For the articles, nominative and accusative are nearly the same. Only the masculine ("der") forms change:

"a(n)"	masc.	neut.	fem.
Nominative	ein	ein	eine
Accusative	einen	ein	eine

"the"	m.	n.	f.	pl.
Nom.	der	das	die	die
Acc.	den	das	die	die

The fact that most words in German are affected by the case explains why the sentence order is more flexible than in English . For example, you can say Das Mädchen hat den Apfel. (The girl has the apple.) or Den Apfel hat das Mädchen.. In both cases, den Apfel (the apple) is the accusative object, and das Mädchen is the subject (always nominative).

However, take note that in German, the verb always has to be in position 2. If something other than the subject takes up position 1, the subject will then move after the verb.

• Normally, I drink water.
• Normalerweise trinke ich Wasser.

A few common verbs change the vowel in the second and third person singular.

Here is the table for a verb without vowel change:

En. person	person	trinken
I	ich	trinke
you (sg.)	du	trinkst
he/she/it	er/sie/es	trinkt
we	wir	trinken
you (pl.)	ihr	trinkt
they	sie	trinken

And here are three verbs with that vowel change. Notice that in the first two verbs, the 2nd and 3rd person singular seem the same. This is just because the du ending -st merged with the -s- of the verb stem. This is unrelated to the vowel change.

person	lesen	sprechen
ich	lese	spreche
du	liest	sprichst
er/sie/es	liest	spricht
wir	lesen	sprechen
ihr	lest	sprecht
sie	lesen	sprechen

Similarly, essen turns to du isst/er isst.

Sprechen (to speak) will be introduced in one of the next lessons.

Isst and ist sound exactly the same. So do Es ist ein Apfel. and Es isst ein Apfel. sound the same?

Yes, but you can tell it's Es ist ein Apfel: Es isst ein Apfel is ungrammatical. The accusative of ein Apfel is einen Apfel. Hence, It is eating an apple translates as Es isst einen Apfel .

Of course, this only works for masculine nouns. Other forms will look the same in nominative and accusative:

• Er isst eine Banane.
• Er ist eine Banane.

Only context will tell you here :)

In English, you can say "I'm having bread" when you really mean that you're eating or about to eat bread. This does not work in German. The verb haben refers to possession only. Hence, the sentence Ich habe Brot only translates to I have bread, not I'm having bread. Of course, the same applies to drinks. Ich habe Wasser only translates to I have water, not I'm having water.

Conjugation is also slightly irregular: two forms lose the -b-.

English person	German example
I	ich habe
you (sg.)	du hast
he/she/it	er/sie/es hat
we	wir haben
you (pl.)	ihr habt
they	sie haben

There is no new grammar in this lesson. If you're confused, you can review the grammar points from earlier lessons.

Or you can check the discussion that's available for each sentence. You can reach these when tapping or clicking on the speech bubble. Your question might already have been answered there. Otherwise, you can leave a comment yourself.

As mentioned in the "Accusative" lesson, haben is not used in the sense of "I'm having bread" or "I'm having tea" in German. Ich habe Brot only translates to "I have bread".

German uses haben in some instances where English uses "to be":

• Ich habe Hunger. (I am hungry.)

• Ich habe Durst. (I am thirsty.)

• Sie hat Recht. (She is right.)

• Er hat Angst. (He is afraid.)

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.

• die Orange + der Saft = der Orangensaft

• der Hund + das Futter = das Hundefutter (the dog food)

• die Liebe + das Lied = das Liebeslied (the love song)

• der Tag + das Gericht = das Tagesgericht (dish of the day)

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.

The word süß means "sweet" when referring to food, and "cute" when referring to living beings.

• Der Zucker ist süß. (The sugar is sweet.)
• Die Katze ist süß. (The cat is cute.)

In German, Gemüse is used as a mass noun. That means it's grammatically singular and takes a singular verb.

While noun genders might seem random for many words, there are quite a few ways to at least land a likely hit.

For example, many German nouns have some kind of ending, which will always or often come with a particular gender.

• Non-living objects that end in -e: these will almost always be feminine (Schokolade, Erdbeere, Orange, Banane, Suppe, …). One of the very few exceptions is der Käse . This also works for many, but not all animals ( die Katze, Ente, Spinne, Biene, Fliege, … ).

• Nouns beginning with Ge- are often neuter. This is the only prefix determining gender. (das Gemüse, …)

There are many more endings like these. You will learn more about them throughout this course.

Unlike English, German has two similar but different verbs for "to eat": essen and fressen. The latter is the standard way of expressing that an animal is eating something. Be careful not to use fressen to refer to humans – this would be a serious insult. Assuming you care about politeness, we will not accept your solutions if you use fressen with human subjects.

The most common way to express that a human being is eating something is the verb essen. It is not wrong to use it for animals as well, so we will accept both solutions. But we strongly recommend you accustom yourself to the distinction between essen and fressen.

Fortunately, both verbs have the same conjugation:

essen	fressen (for animals)
ich esse	ich fresse
du isst	du frisst
er/sie/es isst	er/sie/es frisst
wir essen	wir fressen
ihr esst	ihr fresst
sie essen	sie fressen

In English, making plurals out of singular nouns is typically as straightforward as adding an -(e)s at the end of the word:

• the dog, the dogs

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.

• die Frau, die Frauen
• die Ente, die Enten
• der Junge, die Jungen

Most nouns ending in a full vowel will add an -s in the plural.

• das Sofa, die Sofas
• das Auto, die Autos
• das Baby, die Babys
• das Café, die Cafés

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:

• der Chef (the boss), die Chefs
• die Email, die Emails
• der Job, die Jobs

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

• der Computer, die Computer
• der Löffel (the spoon), die Löffel

Some words for close family members will have an umlaut change:

• der Bruder (the brother), die Brüder

If words with these endings are feminine, the plural will end in -n:

• die Schwester (the sister), die Schwestern
• die Gabel (the fork), die Gabeln

Most German one-syllable nouns will add an -e in their plural form. There might be an umlaut change.

• das Brot (the bread), die Brote
• der Tisch (the table), die Tische
• der Ball (the ball), die Bälle

Many other masculine or neuter nouns will need the -er ending, and there may be umlaut changes.

• das Kind (the child), die Kinder
• der Mann (the man), die Männer

Job descriptions are usually masculine:

• der Koch (the male cook)
• der Fahrer (the male driver)
• der Lehrer (the male teacher)
• der Arzt (the male physician)

To refer to a female, German adds -in:

• die Köchin (the female cook)
• die Fahrerin (the female driver)
• die Lehrerin (the female teacher)
• die Ärztin (the female physician)

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:

• die Köche (the cooks)
• die Fahrer (the drivers)
• die Lehrer (the teachers)
• die Ärzte (the physicians)

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.

• die Köchinnen
• die Fahrerinnen
• die Lehrerinnen
• die Ärztinnen

Predicate adjectives, i.e. adjectives that don't precede a noun, are not inflected.

• Der Mann ist groß.
• Die Männer sind groß.
• Die Frau ist groß.
• Die Frauen sind groß.
• Das Haus ist groß.
• Die Häuser sind groß.

As you can see, the adjective remains in the base form, regardless of number and gender.

"D'uh", you say? Keep digging into the German skills tree, and you will soon find the deeper reality of German adjectives :)

There are different ways to negate expressions in German (much like in English you can use "no" in some cases, and "does not" in others). The German adverb nicht (not) is used very often, but sometimes you need to use kein (not a). Kein will be taught in a later lesson.

Use nicht in the following situations:

Nicht negates a noun that has a definite article:

• Das ist nicht der Junge. (That is not the boy.)

Nicht negates a noun that has a possessive pronoun:

• Das ist nicht mein Glas. (That is not my glass.)

When negating a verb, use nicht.

• Ich trinke nicht. (I do not drink.)

Why does the nicht appear at the end here?

Refer to the section "Position of nicht" below to find the answer.

Nicht appears before an adverb or adverbial phrase:

• Ich tanze nicht oft. (I don't dance often.)

When an adjective is part of a verb, also use nicht.

• Du bist nicht hungrig. (You are not hungry.)

The infinitive here is hungrig sein (to be hungry).

Adverbs end up in different places in different languages. You cannot simply place the German adverb nicht where you would put "not" in English.

The general rule is:

Nicht appears before the item it negates.

• Du bist nicht hungrig. (not hungry)
• Ich tanze nicht oft. (not often)
• Das ist nicht mein Glas. (not my glass)
• Das ist nicht der Junge. (not the boy)

So, what about Ich trinke nicht?

Consider this English sentence:

• I wake up in China.

The verb would be "wake up", the infinitive "to wake up". English keeps its verb elements close together. German, on the other hand, has a peculiar sentence structure:

• Ich wache in China auf.

The infinitive here is auf|wachen. German will normally put the last element of the infinitive (the part that changes with the person) in position 2 of the sentence. Everything else will end up at the very end. The rest of the sentence (for example, adverbs), will appear between this "sentence bracket".

Here's a longer example:

• Infinitive: mit Freunden ins Restaurant gehen (to go to the restaurant with friends)

• Ich gehe mit Freunden ins Restaurant.

If you're confused now, don't worry :) This will become clearer as you get lots of practice throughout this course.

Why are we telling you this here? This bracket is the reason nicht might end up at the end of a sentence.

Consider these examples:

• Ich lerne Deutsch. (I learn German.) — Deutsch lernen (to learn German)
• Ich trinke Bier. (I drink beer.) — Bier trinken (to drink beer)
• Ich trinke nicht. — nicht trinken ("to not drink")

This skill contains both negative and positive statements.

When asking a yes/no question in English, you would say:

• "Is it cold?", but
• "Do you have a dog?" or
• "Does the man drink water?".

German will not use "do" here. We will switch subject and verb for all verbs.

• Ist es kalt?
• Hast du einen Hund?
• Trinkt der Mann Wasser?

This skill contains both questions and statements.

Remember that in German, there's no continuous aspect, i.e. there are no separate forms for "I drink" and "I am drinking". There's only one form: Ich trinke.

There's no such thing as Ich bin trinke or Ich bin trinken!

Here again is the complete table for conjugating regular verbs:

Example: gehen (to go)

English person	German example
I	ich gehe
you (sg. informal)	du gehst
he/she/it	er/sie/es geht
we	wir gehen
you (pl. informal)	ihr geht
they	sie gehen

Notice that the 1st and the 3rd person plural have the same ending.

The -h- in gehen tells you that the -e- before it will have a "long" pronunciation. It is not pronounced!

A few common verbs change the vowel in the second and third person singular.

Normally the vowel will change:

• from a to ä
• from e to i(e)

person	schlafen	sehen
ich	schlafe	sehe
du	schläfst	siehst
er/sie/es	schläft	sieht
wir	schlafen	sehen
ihr	schlaft	seht
sie	schlafen	sehen

Other verbs in this skill are

• fahren (to ride) — du fährst
• waschen (to wash) — du wäschst

In addition, when a verb stem ends in -s, second and third person plural forms will look the same:

• lesen (to read) — du liest, er liest

This is because the -s- from du …-st and the -s from the verb stem merge.

Wollen (to want) and mögen (to like) follow a different conjugation system:

English	pronoun	wollen	mögen
I want/like	ich	will	mag
you (sg. inf.)	du	willst	magst
he/she/it	er/sie/es	will	mag
we	wir	wollen	mögen
you (pl. inf.)	ihr	wollt	mögt
they	sie	wollen	mögen

Notice that here, the first and third person are the same (plural and singular). The vowel in singular is different from the vowel in plural.

Use the verb mögen to express that you like something or someone.

Mögen cannot be used for verbs!

In a later lesson, you will learn to use the adverb gern(e) to express that you like doing* something .

(The similar verb möchten can be followed by a verb, but Ich möchte Fußball spielen translates as "I would like to play soccer", not "I like playing soccer".)

• Ich mag Bier. (I like beer.)

• Sie mag Katzen. (She likes cats.)

• Wir mögen dich. (We like you.)

• Ihr mögt Bücher. (You like books.)

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.

The German for "the lake" is der See (masculine) and the most commonly used word for "the sea" is das Meer (neuter).

There's another slightly less commonly used word for "the sea": die See (feminine).

Be careful not to confuse der See (the lake) and die See (the sea). Remember that when you learn a noun, you should always learn the gender with it.

singular	(masc.: "lake")	(fem.: "sea")
nominative	der See	die See
accusative	den See	die See

The plural forms are identical (only the plural of der See is commonly used).

plural	(masc.: "lakes")	(fem.: "seas")
nominative	die Seen	die Seen
accusative	die Seen	die Seen

There are not many noun pairs like this in German. Here is the most extreme example, with plural forms:

• das Band (die Bänder) - the tape (band)
• der Band (die Bände) - the volume/tome
• die Band (pronounced as in English) (die Bands) - the music band

A pronoun is a word that represents a noun, like er does for der Mann. In the nominative case, the personal pronouns are simply the grammatical persons you already know: ich, du, er/sie/es, wir, ihr, and sie.

German uses possessive pronouns similar to the English ones. For example "my" is mein in German, "his" is sein, and "her" is ihr.

personal pronouns	possessive pronouns
ich	mein
du	dein
er/es	sein
sie (feminine)	ihr
wir	unser
ihr	euer
sie (plural)	ihr

Remember that in German, eu sounds like "boy", and the ending -er normally roughly sounds like "ma".

Nominative forms

Unlike English, these possessive pronouns change their endings in the same way as the indefinite article ein.

• mein Bruder (ein Bruder)
• meine Mutter (eine Mutter)

This is mostly straightforward (just append the correct ending according to the noun). There is a slight irregularity: euer does not become euere, but eure (it loses an internal -e-).

The following table has the forms in the nominative case. These are used for subjects, as in

• Meine Katze ist super. (My cat is great.)

	der Hund	das Insekt	die Katze	die Hunde
indef. article	ein	ein	eine	(keine)
ich	mein	mein	meine	meine
du	dein	dein	deine	deine
er/es	sein	sein	seine	seine
sie (fem.)	ihr	ihr	ihre	ihre
wir	unser	unser	unsere	unsere
ihr	euer	euer	eure	eure
sie (plural)	ihr	ihr	ihre	ihre

As you might notice, ihr has several different functions, so make sure you understand the context it is used in.

The demonstrative pronouns in English are: this, that, these, and those. In German, in Nominative and Accusative, the demonstrative pronouns are the same as the definite articles.

That means, der, die and das can also mean "that (one)" or "this (one)" depending on the gender of the respective noun, and "die" (plural) can mean "these" or "those."

• Der ist komisch! (That one is strange!)
• Meine Kinder? Die sind in England. (My kids? They/Those are in England.)

When spoken, the definite articles can serve a similar function:

• Der Junge liest eine Zeitung, der Junge liest ein Buch.
• This boy is reading a newspaper, that boy is reading a book.

The articles would be stressed in that case.

Some other words can function as pronouns.

The following ones change their endings like definite articles:

	der	das
this/these	dieser	dieses
every	jeder	jedes
some	mancher	manches

die (fem.)	die (pl.)
diese	diese
jede	---
manche	manche

• Dieser Junge isst, dieser (Junge) trinkt.

• This boy eats, that (boy/one) drinks.

• Jedes Kind mag Pizza. (Every kid likes pizza.)

• Manche Kinder mögen Käse. (Some kids like cheese.)

These roughly correspond to English "much/many". Use viel with uncountable nouns, viele with countable ones.

• Ich trinke viel Wasser.
• Ich habe viele Hunde.

Just like nicht (not) has a look-alike nichts (nothing), alle (all) has alles (everything) as a counterpart.

• Ich esse nicht. (I do not eat.)
• Ich esse nichts. (I eat nothing.)
• Ich esse alles. (I eat everything.)
• Ich esse alle (Orangen). (I eat all (oranges).)

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).

There are different ways to negate expressions in German (much like in English you can use "no" in some cases, and "does not" in others). The German adverb nicht (not) is used very often, but sometimes you need to use kein (not a).

As mentioned in the lesson "Not", you should use nicht in the following situations:

• Negating a noun that has a definite article like der Junge (the boy) in Das ist nicht der Junge. (That is not the boy).
• Negating a noun that has a possessive pronoun like mein Glas (my glass) in Das ist nicht mein Glas. (That is not my glass).
• Negating the verb: Ich trinke nicht. (I do not drink.).
• Negating an adverb or adverbial phrase. For instance, Ich tanze nicht oft. (I do not dance often)
• Negating an adjective that is used with sein (to be): Ich bin nicht hungrig . (I am not hungry).

For details, and to learn where to put nicht in a sentence, refer to the "Not" lesson.

Simply put, kein is composed of k + ein and placed where the indefinite article would be in a sentence. If you want to negate ein, use kein.

Just like mein and the other possessive pronouns, kein changes its ending like ein.

For instance, look at the positive and negative statement about these two nouns:

• Er ist ein Mann. (He is a man) — Sie ist kein Mann. (She is not a/no man.)
• Ich habe eine Katze. (I have a cat.) — Ich habe keine Katze. (I have no cat.)

Here are the endings of the indefinite article so far:

	masc	neut	fem	plural
nominative	ein	ein	eine	---
accusative	einen	ein	eine	---

Here is the list of the respective kein forms:

	masc	neut	fem	plural
nominative	kein	kein	keine	keine
accusative	keinen	kein	keine	keine

Kein is also used for negating nouns that have no article: Er hat Brot. (He has bread.) versus Er hat kein Brot. (He has no bread.).

As a general rule:

• If you can use "not a/no" in English, use kein.
• If you need to use "not", use nicht.

Nicht is an adverb and is useful for negations. On the other hand, nichts (nothing/anything) is a pronoun and its meaning is different from that of nicht.

• Ich esse nicht. (I do not eat.)
• Ich esse nichts. (I eat nothing.)

Using nicht simply negates a fact, and is less overarching than nichts. For example, Der Schüler lernt nicht. (The student does not learn.) is less extreme than Der Schüler lernt nichts. (The student does not learn anything.).

In German, "nobody" can be expressed in several ways.

As long as at refers to people, niemand works just fine:

• Niemand schläft. (Nobody sleeps.)

There is also keiner. It changes endings like the definite articles:

	masc.	neut.	fem.	plural
nominative	der	das	die	die
accusative	den	das	die	die

	masc.	neut.	fem.	plural
nominative	keiner	keines	keine	keine
accusative	keinen	keines	keine	keine

For now, we teach only the default version (which is masculine in German):

• Keiner schläft. (None of them sleeps.)

Use the verb mögen to express that you like something or someone, and use the adverb gern(e) to express that you like doing something.

• Ich mag Bier. (I like beer.)

• Sie mag Katzen. (She likes cats.)

• Wir mögen dich. (We like you.)

• Ihr mögt Bücher. (You like books.)

Please refer to lesson "Present 1" for more details on mögen.

• Ich trinke gern(e) Bier. (I like to drink beer/I like drinking beer.)

• Er spielt gern(e) Fußball. (He likes to play soccer/He likes playing soccer.)

• Wir lesen gern(e) Bücher. (We like to read books/We like reading books.)

• Sie schreibt gern(e) Briefe. (She likes to write letters/She likes writing letters.)

If you're not sure where to put gern(e): It goes to the same position as oft (often).

• Ich trinke oft Bier. (I drink beer often.)
• Ich trinke gern Bier. (I like to drink beer.)

What's the difference between gern and *gerne*? They're just variations of the same word. There's no difference in terms of meaning or style. You can use whichever you like best.

The same goes for allein(e).

Auch corresponds to English "also, too".

The positioning follows different rules in both languages. Soon you will learn more about the peculiarities of German sentence structure. For now, remember that auch takes roughly the same position as nicht. When both occur together, auch will come before nicht.

Consider these two examples to get a first idea about this:

• Ich laufe. Du läufst auch. Er läuft nicht. Sie läuft auch nicht .

• Ich komme aus China. Du kommst auch aus China. Er kommt nicht aus China. Sie kommt auch nicht aus China.

Here's one more adverb, to see how they work together:

• Ich trinke oft Bier. Du trinkst auch oft Bier. Er trinkt nicht oft Bier. Sie trinkt auch nicht oft Bier.

For reasons that will become clearer soon, Sie kommt aus China auch. is not a valid sentence in German.

As mentioned before, you can often know the gender of a noun by looking at the word ending .

• non-living objects that end in -e: these will almost always be feminine ( die Lampe, Schokolade, Erdbeere, Orange, Banane, Suppe, Hose, Jacke, Sonne, Straße, Brücke, Schule, … )
• nouns beginning with Ge- are often neuter. This is the only prefix determining gender. ( das Gebäude, Gemüse, Gesicht, Gesetz, … )

In addition, rhyming can often help. If you already know a noun that rhymes with the new one, there's a good chance they will have the same gender. Go for it :)

• der Fisch, der Tisch
• der Raum, der Traum, der Baum
• der Kopf, der Knopf

When English uses a word from French, it usually pronounces it according to English sound rules. German will often sound more close to the original.

An example for this is Restaurant. Like in French, the last syllable will sound roughly like "raw". The -t will be silent. Some people will pronounce the ending similar to English "rung" instead. Of course, the R- will sound like the German r, not the English one.

German is well known for its long words that can be made up on the go by concatenating existing words. In this skill you will learn one very simple and commonly used way of forming compounds: adding -zeug (="stuff") to existing words.

Remember that the last element determines gender and plural. So all new words in this lesson will be neuter.

OK, because you asked: the longest "real" German word (so far) is:

• Rindfleisch-etikettierungs-überwachungs-aufgaben-übertragungs-gesetz

(Without the hyphens. We had to add those in order to be able to show the whole word…)

It's a law on how to transfer tasks about the monitoring of the labeling of beef. At least that's what the word says.

If you enjoyed this, check out "Rhabarberbarbara" on Youtube.

No, words like this don't normally happen in German :)

In English, you can't count "stuff" -- you can't use the plural "stuffs" or say that "there are three stuffs on the floor". Instead, "stuff" is a collective noun, referring to a group of things but used in the singular: "there is stuff on the floor".

Some German -zeug words can work like this as well -- for example, Spielzeug and Werkzeug in the singular, without an article, mean "toys" and "tools", which are plural in English.

Those words can also be used in a countable way: ein Spielzeug, zwei Werkzeuge "one toy, two tools". So "the tools" could be either das Werkzeug or die Werkzeuge -- the former would view the tools as a group, the latter would consider them individually.

Look out for whether there is an indefinite article or number before the singular word to see whether it's used countably or uncountably.

If there's a possessive word or a definite article before such a noun in the singular, it could be either: mein Werkzeug ist neu could mean either "My tool is new" or "My tools are new", for example; similarly with das Werkzeug ist neu which could be either "The tools is new" or "The tools are new".

(An English word that works similarly is "fruit" -- "my fruit" could refer to just one apple, or it could refer to two apples and a banana all together, depending on whether "fruit" is used countably or uncountably.)

Other -zeug words are always regular countable words, such as Flugzeug "airplane" or Feuerzeug "lighter".

Aside from the nominative case, most of the German pronouns are declined according to case. Like in English, when the subject becomes the object, the pronoun changes. For instance, ich changes to mich (accusative object) as in Sie sieht mich. (She sees me.).

Nominative (subject)	Accusative (object)
ich (I)	mich (me)
du (you singular informal)	dich (you singular informal)
er (he) sie (she) es (it)	ihn (him) sie (her) es (it)
wir (we)	uns (us)
ihr (you plural informal)	euch (you plural informal)
sie (they)	sie (them)

Notice that apart from masculine singular, the third person forms are the same in nominative and accusative. The masculine form, which does change, has the same endings as the definite article (der becomes den).

You might remember from the lesson "Personal Pronouns" that German possessive pronouns change their endings like the indefinite article:

• ein Hund, mein Hund
• eine Katze, meine Katze

This extends to all cases. You already know that in the accusative case, only masculine singular changes :

• Ein Hund schläft. Er sieht einen Hund.

but:

• Eine Katze schläft. Sie sieht eine Katze. (no change)

So, if you see einen, meinen, unseren and so forth with a singular noun, you will know two things:

• the noun is masculine
• the noun is in the accusative case (probably the object of the sentence)

Consider this example:

• Meinen Hund mag die Frau nicht.

It is clear here that the dog must be the object (accusative). So actually the woman does not like the dog.

Here is the table of possessive pronouns for the accusative case:

Accusative	der Hund	das Insekt	die Katze	die Hunde
indef. article	einen	ein	eine	(keine)
ich	meinen	mein	meine	meine
du	deinen	dein	deine	deine
er/es	seinen	sein	seine	seine
sie (fem.)	ihren	ihr	ihre	ihre
wir	unseren	unser	unsere	unsere
ihr	euren	euer	eure	eure
sie (plural)	ihren	ihr	ihre	ihre

These roughly correspond to English "much/many". Use viel with uncountable nouns, viele with countable ones.

• Ich trinke viel Wasser.
• Ich habe viele Hunde.

Viele changes endings like the articles. But because the plural forms are the same for nominative and accusative, for now it will look always the same.

Jeder changes endings like definite articles:

• die Frau, jede Frau
• das Mädchen, jedes Mädchen
• der Mann, jeder Mann — den Mann, jeden Mann (accusative)

Möbel corresponds to English "furniture". While "furniture" is singular, Möbel is normally only used in the plural.

• Die Möbel sind super! (The furniture is great!)

A conjunction like wenn (when) or und (and) connects two parts of a sentence together.

Coordinating conjunctions form a group of coordinators (like und (and), aber (but)), which combine two items of equal importance; here, each clause can stand on its own and the word order does not change.

• Ich mag Schokolade. Sie mag Pizza.
• Ich mag Schokolade und sie mag Pizza.

Examples: und, oder, aber, denn

Subordinating conjunctions combine an independent clause with a dependent clause; the dependent clause cannot stand on its own and its word order will be different than if it did. In these subordinate clauses, the verb switches from the second position to the last.

• Ich bin gesund. Ich laufe oft.

• Ich bin gesund, weil ich oft laufe.

• Ich spreche gut Deutsch. Ich lerne oft Deutsch.

• Ich spreche gut Deutsch, weil ich oft Deutsch lerne.

Examples: weil, wenn, dass, obwohl

Correlative conjunctions work in pairs to join sentence parts of equal importance. For instance, entweder...oder (either...or) is such a pair and can be used like this: Der Schuh ist entweder blau oder rot. (This shoe is either blue or red.).

In German, conjunctions do not change with the case (i.e. they are not declinable).

• Du trägst einen Rock. Du trägst eine Hose.

• Du trägst entweder einen Rock oder eine Hose.

• Du wäschst den Rock. Du trägst eine Hose.

• Entweder du wäschst den Rock, oder du trägst eine Hose.
• Du wäschst entweder den Rock oder (du) trägst eine Hose.

Examples: entweder … oder, nicht nur … sondern auch, weder … noch

Sondern works like "but … instead" in English. It only takes the element that is different:

• Ich trage kein Kleid. Ich trage eine Hose.

• Ich trage kein Kleid, sondern eine Hose.

• Sie kommt nicht aus Deutschland. Sie kommt aus China.

• Sie kommt nicht aus Deutschland, sondern aus China.

In English, you refer to one "person", but multiple "people". In German, Leute is also only used in the plural. The singular is eine Person.

Germany has many Turkish people. These are not necessarily from Turkey. Most have had their parents or even their grandparents born in Germany.

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. "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:

• Wer ist da? (Who is there?).

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.

• Wen siehst du? — Ich sehe den Hund.
• (Whom do you see? — I see the dog.)

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:

• Wo ist mein Schuh hin? (Where did my shoe go?)

The same goes for woher (where from):

• Woher kommst du? (Where are you from)

might become

• Wo kommst du her?

English	German
where	wo
where to	wohin
where from	woher

Wann (when) does not change depending on the case. Wann can be used with conjunctions such as seit (since) or bis (till):

• Seit wann wartest du? (Since when have you been waiting?)

• Bis wann geht der Film? (Till when does the movie last?).

Don't confuse wann with wenn which you learned in Conjunctions. Both translate to "when" in English, but they have different functions in German.

• Wann kommst du? (When are you coming?)

• Ich schlafe nicht, wenn ich Musik höre. (I don't sleep when I listen to music)

Warum (why) is also not declinable. It will never change endings. Wieso, Weshalb, and Weswegen can be used instead of Warum. There's no difference in meaning.

Here is an example. All four following sentences mean "Why is the car so old?".

• Warum ist das Auto so alt?

• Wieso ist das Auto so alt?

• Weshalb ist das Auto so alt?

• Weswegen ist das Auto so alt?

Wie viel is used with uncountable or countable nouns (how much/how many), and wie viele is only used with countable nouns (how many). Some people think that "wie viel" can only be used with uncountable nouns, but that is not true.

• Wie viel Milch trinkst du? (How much milk do you drink?)

• Wie viel(e) Tiere siehst du? (How many animals do you see?)

Just like in English, there are informal and formal words for "mother", "father", "grandmother", and "grandfather". Note that in German, the difference between formal and informal is a lot more pronounced than in English. The informal terms are pretty much only used within your own family.

formal	informal
die Mutter (the mother)	die Mama (the mom)
der Vater (the father)	der Papa (the dad)
die Großmutter (the grandmother)	die Oma (the grandma)
der Großvater (the grandfather)	der Opa (the grandpa)

You might notice that most members of the close family have their own "system" of plurals:

singular	plural
die Mutter	die Mütter
der Vater	die Väter
der Bruder	die Brüder
die Tochter	die Töchter
die Schwester	die Schwestern

Schwester has an extra -n, because it can't change its vowel (e has no umlaut).

Eltern (parents) has no singular, unlike in English. We normally refer to Mutter or Vater then.

If necessary, there is a word das Elternteil (literally, "the parents part"). But this is only used in formal settings, for example on forms.

There are countless alternative words for certain family members. A lot of them are regionalisms or influenced by your own family's heritage. Some of them are ambiguous as well. For instance, some people call their father "papa", and some people call their grandfather "papa".

We can't accept all these terms, and since translations used in the German course for English speakers may also pop up in the English course for German speakers, we don't want to confuse German speakers with these words. Please understand that we're not going to add more alternatives. In your own interest, stick to the ones suggested by Duolingo (see above).

Prepositions take a noun (or a noun phrase):

• I talk with a friend from school.

In German, prepositions will change this noun into one of the cases (but never into nominative).

Here, you learn those that always trigger the accusative case.

Remember that as long as the noun is not masculine singular, the nominative and the accusative will look the same.

• Der Hund trinkt den Saft. (both are masculine)
• Die Katze trinkt die Milch. (both are feminine)

Accusative prepositions always trigger the accusative case.

• Nicht ohne meinen Hund! (Not without my dog!)
• Die Suppe ist für den Mann ohne Zähne. (The soup is for the man without teeth.)

German has these common accusative prepositions: durch, für, gegen, ohne, um

Entlang is a strange word :) It is commonly used with the accusative case. But then it has to appear after the noun.

• Ich gehe den Fluss entlang. (I walk along the river.)

It can be used before the noun, but then triggers a different case. This sounds a bit old-fashioned or stilted today. So better use it after the noun.

You might notice that German numbers look very similar to those in English. The two languages are closely related. So any time you encounter a new word, it's worth checking whether you can find a similar-looking word in English.

At some point, you might realize that there are several more or less consistent changes between English and German. Here are some:

Change	English	German
t > s/z	ten, two	zehn, zwei
gh > ch	eight	acht
v > b	seven	sieben
th > d/t	three	drei
o > ei	one, two	eins, zwei

Generally, the vowels change faster than the consonants. So go for the consonants when looking for related words.

You learned bezahlen (to pay) earlier. There's also the word zahlen, which also means to pay. In this lesson, you learn zählen, which means "to count". Don't confuse the two.

In addition, you will see Zahlen. The upper-case initial tells you this is a noun. It is the plural of die Zahl (the number).

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":

• Ich schmecke Knoblauch! (I taste garlic!)
• Knoblauch schmeckt super! (Garlic tastes great!)

In addition, schmecken can be used by itself:

• Die Pizza schmeckt nicht! (The pizza does not taste good!)

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.

Welcome to the third important case in German :) Later on, there will be a last, less important one.

You already saw that the accusative case can be used in different ways.

It can signify the object of a sentence:

• Der Hund frisst den Vogel. (The dog is eating the bird.)

This is called the direct object (or accusative object).

It can also be used in combination with some prepositions:

• Sie geht ohne den Hund. (She walks without the dog.)
• Er hat einen Mantel ohne Knöpfe. (He has a coat without buttons.)

The dative case also has a range of different functions.

In this lesson, you learn to use it with the indirect object. This is also called the dative object.

The indirect object in a sentence is the receiver of the direct (accusative) object.

For example, Frau is the indirect (dative) object in

• Das Mädchen gibt einer Frau den Apfel. (A girl gives the apple to a woman.)

You can think about it as "the other person involved" in a transaction.

• Ich gebe dem Mann einen Apfel. (I give the man an apple.)
• Sie zeigt dem Kind den Hund. (She shows the child the dog.)

Generally, the dative object comes before the accusative object.

The dative is also used for certain dative verbs such as danken (to thank) and antworten (to answer), or helfen (to help):

• Ich danke dem Kind. (I thank the child.)
• Ich helfe der Frau. (I help the woman.)
• Ich antworte meinem Bruder. (I answer my brother.)

These verbs don't have an accusative object.

Note that the dative changes all articles for the words.

For example, die Katze is a feminine noun. However, the article in dative will be der. This might look like the masculine article. But in the context of a sentence, there will never be any confusion between the two, as long as you know your genders. This is one reason why it's so important to know the gender of a word.

definite articles	Nominative	Accusative	Dative
masculine	der	den	dem
neuter	das	das	dem
feminine	die	die	der
plural	die	die	den

indefinite articles	Nominative	Accusative	Dative
masculine	ein	einen	einem
neuter	ein	ein	einem
feminine	eine	eine	einer
plural	(keine)	(keine)	(keinen)

Notice how masculine and neuter look the same in Dative (just like they look the same for Nominative indefinite articles).

This also means that if you see a noun in the Dative, and the article ends in -r, it will be a feminine word. Alternatively, if it ends in -m, it won't.

It is very much worth remembering these Dative endings, because they will pop up in different context, and help you a lot to sort out the grammar. In a way, Dative is the "simplest" case :)

	Dative endings
Masculine/Neuter	-m
Feminine	-r
Plural	-n

Here's a great rule:

Plural Dative: Everything gets an -n

(Insert Oprah Winfrey GIF here)

You just saw that articles (also pronouns etc.) get an -n ending in dative plural.

Later, you will learn that the German ending system for adjectives is a bit complicated. However, in dative plural, you just add an -n.

It goes so far that even plural forms of nouns get an extra -n in the Dative.

• Er hat drei Hunde. Er spielt mit drei Hunden. (He plays with three dogs.)
• Die Computer sind alt. Ich antworte den Computern. (I answer the computers.)

There are two "exceptions":

• If the plural already end in -n, you're set.
• If the plural ends in -s, there's also no change.

Some masculine nouns add an -en or -n ending in the dative and in all other cases besides the nominative . For example in the dative, it is dem Jungen (the boy).

If you want to look these up, the term for them is "n-Declension".

In German, the singular is Euro and the plural is usually Euro as well. As a rule of thumb, use Euro when talking about a specific amount, e.g. 200 Euro.

In some contexts, the form Euros is used as well. For instance, you can say Euros to refer to individual euro coins, an unquantified amount of euros, or euros as opposed to a different currency, e.g.:

• Ich habe hundert Schweizer Franken, aber keine Euros (I have a hundred Swiss francs but no euros).

Many native speakers use either plural form regardless of context.

In English, either plural form is perfectly fine. The plural form euro tends to be preferred in the Republic of Ireland, and the plural form euros tends to preferred pretty much anywhere else. Originally, the plural form euro was supposed to be used in official EU documents, but that's no longer the case.

Many words change in the dative case. For the third person pronouns, the following are different from the nominative case: the masculine pronoun is ihm (to him), the feminine is ihr (to her), the neuter is ihm (to it), and the plural is ihnen (to them).

Nominative	Accusative	Dative
ich (I)	mich (me)	mir (to me)
du	dich	dir
er / es / sie	ihn / es / sie	ihm / ihm / ihr
wir	uns	uns
ihr	euch	euch
sie	sie	ihnen

Some observations:

• In dative, mir, dir, ihr (to me / you / her) rhyme.

• In the third person, the endings are the same as for the articles: -m, -r, -n. However, plural dative is "ihnen" (not ihn, as you might expect).

• In the second person plural, accusative and dative pronouns are the same.

Now you can understand why, when thanking a female person, it is only correct to say Ich danke ihr ("I thank her", literally "I give-thank to her") and not Ich danke sie (that sounds like "I thank she" would sound to an English speaker).

Remember that some verbs have a dative object. This is just a quirk of German. There was a reason for it when these words were created, but it's not easy to understand anymore, after a lot of language change.

In short, you just have to learn these :) There aren't very many.

Gehören literally means to "belong to". But don't translate too literally, often a different translation will be more natural.

• Wem gehört das Kleid? ("Whose dress is it?" - Literally, "Whom does the dress belong to?")

Tall people are groß, not hoch, and short people are klein, not kurz.

This is why German people will often refer to tall people as "big" :)

These are French words. While it is possible to write Cousine as Kusine now, German never found a way to actually spell Cousin differently. This is because German originally does not have the French sound at the end. Some people pronounce it like "Kusäng" instead.

Both Die Frau kennt ihren Onkel and Die Frau kennt seinen Onkel are grammatically correct, but they don't have the same meaning.

When you say Die Frau kennt ihren Onkel, you're either talking about the woman's own uncle, another female person's uncle, or the uncle of multiple people.

When you say Die Frau kennt seinen Onkel, you're talking about another person's uncle, and that person is male. People can know other people's relatives.

Earlier, you learned that some prepositions always trigger the accusative case.

The most common ones are durch, für, gegen, ohne, um.

In the same way, dative prepositions always trigger the dative case.

Again, here are the common ones: aus, bei, gegenüber, mit, nach, seit, von, zu.

Some prepositions and articles can be contracted.

preposition + article	contraction
bei + dem	beim
von + dem	vom
vor + das	vors
zu + dem	zum
zu + der	zur

There are some more, which you will learn later.

Seit roughly means "since". However, it works a bit differently.

First, it always denotes something that is still going on.

Second, it has three different ways of usage.

Consider these examples:

• Ich lerne seit sechs Jahren Englisch. (I'm learning English for six years now.)
• Ich lerne seit 2012 Englisch (I've been learning English since 2012.)
• Ich lerne Englisch, seit ich denken kann. (I've been learning English since I can think.)

In the first example, seit defines a stretch of time, which reaches into the present.

In the second example, it also defines a stretch of time, reaching into the present. But it defines this stretch of time by its starting point.

Seit can also be a subordinating conjunction (check the lesson "Conjunctions"). In these, the verb leaves the second position of the sentence, and ends up at the end. This is why in the last example, ich kann denken (I can think) turns into seit ich denken kann.

Zu Hause means at home, and nach Hause means home (homewards, not at home).

The -e at the end of zu Hause and nach Hause is an archaic dative ending, which is no longer used in modern German, but survived in certain fixed expressions.

• Ich bin zu Hause. (I am at home.)

• Ich gehe nach Hause. (I am walking home.)

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.

• Seine Haare sind lang. (ok)
• Sein Haar ist lang. (sounds a bit old)

Das Bein refers to the leg. It used to mean "bone" a long time ago. This meaning survives in some word combinations:

• Elfenbein (ivory, literally "elephant bone")
• Eisbein (pork knuckle, literally "ischias bone", because it referred to hip meat before)
• Beinhaus (bone house)
• Gebein(e) (a collection of bones)

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.

• Komm an meine Brust! - This means the chest area. It will always be used in the singular.
• Vögel haben keine Brüste. (Birds don't have breasts) - This refers to female breasts. It can be used in the singular.

Kaufen is normally used in the meaning of "to buy":

• Ich kaufe einen Hut.

Einkaufen is normally used without an object, and often refers to shopping. It can be used in conjunction with gehen:

• Ich kaufe im Supermarkt ein. (I shop in the supermarket)
• Wann gehst du einkaufen? (When do you go shopping?)

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:

• Die Ferien sind im Sommer. (The holidays are in summer.)

Urlaub only exists as a singular noun:

• Wann ist der Urlaub? (When is the vacation?)

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".

• Der Weg ist lang. (The path is long.)

The word weg (with a short, open -e-) roughly means "away". Here are some examples:

• Geh weg! (Go away!)
• Ich bin weg! (I'm gone!)

You learned earlier that the numbers from 1-19 are very similar to those in English.

This mostly continues in German, with one important quirk. Did you ever notice that the digits in numbers 13-19 are kind of "switched" in English? German continues that through to 99.

So 84 would be vier|und|acht|zig (literally, four and eighty).

This might take some getting used to, but at least it's consistent ;)

For "100", people would usually just say hundert, not einhundert (as in English).

There used to be two different systems for huge numbers, called "short scale" and "long scale". Unfortunately, German and American English ended up with different ones. British English used to use the long scale, but switched to short scale.

Number	US English (short scale)	German (long scale)
10^6	million	Million
10^9	billion	Milliarde
10^12	trillion	Billion
10^15	quadrillion	Billiarde
10^18	quintillion	Trillion

(10^6 means a one with six zeros)

When 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.

Nominative

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.

• Der kleine Hund spielt.
• Ein kleiner Hund spielt.

2) Feminine and Plural end in -e. If you add an article, you also have to add an -n.

• Die alte Katze schläft.
• Alte Katzen schlafen.
• Die alten Katzen schlafen.
• Das sind keine alten Katzen.

Accusative

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

• Die alte Katze schläft. Der alte Mann sieht die alte Katze (no change)
• Die alte Katze sieht den alten Mann.

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

Dative, as always, is even simpler.

4) Dative: all adjectives get an -en ending

• Der Hund mit der roten Nase schläft. (The dog with the red nose is sleeping.)

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,

• masculine/neuter articles end in -m
• feminine articles end in -r
• plural articles end in -n
• and plural nouns (almost) always end in -n.

The imperative mood is used to express commands, just like in English.

There are three different forms, according to the three types of "you" in German.

The imperative for du is very similar to English:

• Du gehst nach Hause. (You go home.)
• Geh nach Hause! (Go home!)

For most verbs, to come up with the correct verb form, just lose the -st ending:

• Du arbeitest nachts. (You work at night)

• Arbeite nachts! (Work at night!)

• Du nimmst das Taxi. (You take the taxi.)

• Nimm das Taxi! (Take the taxi!)

You might have noticed that some common verbs have an extra umlaut in the 2nd/3rd person singular:

• fahren, du fährst
• schlafen, du schläfst

In the imperative, these do not have an umlaut:

• Du fährst mit dem Taxi.
• Fahr mit dem Taxi!

The second one is used to address more than one person informally. It uses the same conjugation as the regular ihr form of the present tense. This form of the imperative does not include a personal pronoun.

• Ihr fahrt nach Paris. (You go to Paris.)
• Fahrt nach Paris! (Go to Paris!)

The third one is used to address one or more people formally. It uses the same conjugation as the regular Sie form of the present tense. The formal imperative is the only form to include the personal pronoun (Sie). Note that the word order is reversed. The verb always precedes the pronoun. It essentially looks like a question.

• Sie lernen Deutsch. (You learn German.)
• Lernen Sie Deutsch! (Learn German!)
• Lernen Sie Deutsch? (Do you learn German?)

The verb sein (to be) is highly irregular. It even has its own imperative version:

normal	imperative
du bist	sei
ihr seid	seid
Sie sind	seien Sie

The following sentences all mean "Please be quiet!":

• Sei bitte ruhig! (one friend)
• Seid bitte ruhig! (several friends)
• Seien Sie bitte ruhig! (some person in the cinema)

As mentioned before, a small number of common verbs changes the vowel in the second + third person singular.

The change will normally be from a to ä or from e to i(e).

	nehmen	geben	essen	lesen	lassen
ich	nehme	gebe	esse	lese	lasse
du	nimmst	gibst	isst	liest	lässt
er/sie/es	nimmt	gibt	isst	liest	lässt
wir	nehmen	geben	essen	lesen	lassen
ihr	nehmt	gebt	esst	lest	lasst
sie/Sie	nehmen	geben	essen	lesen	lassen

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).

• Ich bin Lehrer. (I am a teacher.)

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:

• der Arzt, die Ärztin (the doctor)

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.

• Mein Boss heißt Linda Ackermann.
• Meine Chefin heißt Linda Ackermann.

Accusative prepositions always trigger the accusative case.

Here are the most common ones: durch, für, gegen, ohne, um

Dative prepositions always trigger the dative case.

Here are the most common ones: aus, außer, bei, gegenüber, mit, nach, seit, von, zu

Two-way prepositions take the dative case or the accusative case, depending on the context.

This is an unusual, but central part of German grammar.

If there's movement from one place to another, use the accusative case.

• Die Katze geht in die Küche. (The cat walks into the kitchen.)

If there's no movement, or if there's movement within a certain place, use the dative case.

• Die Katze schläft in der Küche. (The cat sleeps in the kitchen.)
• Die Katze geht in der Küche. (The cat walks within the kitchen.)

These prepositions can switch case: an, auf, hinter, in, neben, über, unter, vor, zwischen

Two-way prepositions are very common in everyday speech, so it's a good idea to practice them to fluency.

However, don't forget that for some prepositions, you don't have to decide:

Durch and um will always be accusative, although they might signify an activity without location change:

• Das Kind rennt durch den Wald. (The child is running through the forest.)
• Die Stühle stehen um den Tisch. (The chairs are standing around the table.)

Aus, von, zu will always be dative, although they might signify a location change.

• Er kommt aus der Küche (He comes out of the kitchen.)
• Ich fahre zur Arbeit. (I go to work.)
• Ich komme von der Arbeit. (I come from work.)

Some verbs use one of these prepositions in a way that is not about location. This is part of language change, where things get repurposed all the time.

Über will always trigger the accusative case:

• Sie diskutieren über den Krieg. (They discuss the war.)

When used with these verbs, vor will always trigger the Dative:

• Er warnt vor dem Hund. (He warns about the dog.)

An, in and auf are more complicated: in some verbs, they trigger the accusative, in others the dative. You'll just have to memorize these.

• Er denkt an seinen Bruder. (He thinks of his brother.)

• Er arbeitet an einem Film (He's working on a film.)

• Ich warte auf den Bus. (I'm waiting for the bus.)

• Der Film basiert auf meinem Leben. (The film is based on my life.)

Some prepositions and articles can be contracted.

an + das	ans
an + dem	am
auf + das	aufs
bei + dem	beim
in + das	ins
in + dem	im
hinter + das	hinters
über + das	übers
um + das	ums
unter + das	unters
von + dem	vom
vor + das	vors
zu + dem	zum
zu + der	zur

• Wir gehen ins Kino (We go to the cinema.)

If you would use "that" in English, you would not use a contraction:

• In das Kino gehe ich nicht! (I won't go into that cinema!)

An important part of German grammar is that some verbs can split off their prefix. This often ends up at the end of a sentence. Some of these prefixes look exactly like a preposition.

So when you see a "preposition" at the end of a sentence, try to combine it with the verb. You might just have learned a new word :)

• Sie macht die Lampe an. (anmachen means "turn on" here)

• Ich denke nach. (nachdenken means "to think")

• Pass auf dich auf! (aufpassen means "to take care")

• Wann fährt der Zug ab? (abfahren means "to depart")

• Nimm deinen Hut ab! (abnehmen means "to take off" in this context)

Unfortunately, the way Duolingo is built does not allow to selectively teach German sentence structure. We hope this will change soon :)

Zu Hause means at home, and nach Hause means home (homewards, not at home). The -e at the end of zu Hause and nach Hause is an archaic dative ending, which is no longer used in modern German, but survives in certain fixed expressions.

• Ich bin zu Hause. (I am at home.)

• Ich gehe nach Hause. (I am walking home.)

Plastik is one of the few words that changes meaning, depending on which gender it is.

• das Plastik (artificial material, normally from petroleum)
• die Plastik (a word for "sculpture")

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.

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.

In English, there are two systems for making comparisons:

• She is older than him.
• Icelandic is more complicated than German.

German only uses the first system:

• Sie ist älter als er.
• Isländisch ist komplizierter als Deutsch.

This is pretty straightforward. However, quite often, the vowel of short adjectives will get an umlaut change :

normal	comparative	superlative
alt (old)	älter	am ältesten
groß (big)	größer	am größten
oft (often)	öfter	am öftesten

You might notice that there will be an extra e in the superlative, if the word stem ends in t (or d). This is a general sound rule, just like in ich arbeite, er arbeitet .

In addition, in some adjectives an e gets lost:

• teuer, teurer (not teuerer), am teuersten

Again, this is a general sound rule. You might have noticed it for euer (plural your), which becomes eure, not euere when it gets an ending.

There is a small number of irregular forms:

normal	comparative	superlative
gut (good)	besser	am besten
viel (much)	mehr	am meisten
gern (to like)	lieber	am liebsten
hoch (high)	höher	am höchsten

Consider these examples:

• Sie hat eine schöne Uhr.
• Sie hat eine schönere Uhr (als ich).

As you can see, comparative adjectives get adjective endings, just like any "normal" adjective.

This can sometimes look a bit confusing:

• Er ist mein junger Bruder. (He's my little brother.)
• Er ist mein jüngerer Bruder. (He's my younger brother.)

In the second example, the first -er is for the comparative, the second -er is the ending from der Bruder.

If you find that really confusing, why not practice adjective endings a bit? :) You can do so in the earlier lesson "Colors".

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:

• Der Hund ist alt. Die Katze ist älter.

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:

• Er ist der älteste Hund. (He is the oldest dog.)
• Wir haben den ältesten Hund.

Now, consider these two sentences:

• Mein Hund ist der älteste. (imagine a second "Hund" at the end)
• Mein Hund ist am ältesten.

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:

• Er der am ältesten Hund. (This is wrong!!)

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:

• Das ist die kleinste Katze der Welt! (This is the world's smallest cat!)
• Wir geben der schönsten Katze einen Preis. (We give a prize to the most beautiful cat.)

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":

• Ich esse den ganzen Apfel. (I eat the whole apple.)

As as adverb, it can intensify or de-intensify other words (depending on which other word you use).

Here's a table to get an idea of the problem:

Intensifier	De-Intensifer
schlecht	gut
oben	nett
vorne	sympathisch
früh	schön
sicher	interessant
toll	gern
furchtbar	lustig
…	ok

Consider these examples:

• Der Film war ganz gut. (The film was quite nice.)
• Der Film war ganz toll! (The film was really great!)

You see the problem :) Ganz is tricky to use for beginners. For now, better use these two words instead :

• ziemlich (always means "quite")

• total (always means "really")

• Der Film war total gut. (The film was really nice.)

• Der Film war ziemlich toll. (The film was quite great.)

A Handtuch is a towel, not a hand towel. Of course, a towel can be a hand towel, but this does not mean that the two words are interchangeable. A pet can be a dog, but this does not mean that the words "pet" and "dog" are interchangeable.

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:

• am Montag
• um drei Uhr
• im Juni

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:

• Wir sind da. (We are here/there.)
• Da ist ein Apfel. (Here/There is an apple.)

With hier (here) and dort (there) you can be more specific about the distance.

• hier (here)
• da (here/there)
• dort (there)

You can also say da oben for "up there" and so on:

• Die Katze ist da oben. (The cat is up there.)
• Da hinten wohnt er. (He lives there in the back.)

You can combine all of them with articles, and use them similar to this and that !

• das hier (this)
• das da (this/that)
• das dort (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.

• der/die/das hier (this)
• der/die/das da (this/that)
• der/die/das dort (that)

To refer to one specific thing, you can put a noun between the article and hier/da/dort.

For example:

• Der Apfel da ist groß. (That apple is big.)
• Die Katzen da sind süß. (Those cats are cute.)

Some people might add drüben. This translates to over there.

• Der Apfel da drüben ist groß. (That apple over there is big.)
• Die Katzen dort drüben sind süß. (Those cats over there are cute.)

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).

• Die Wassermelone ist innen rot und außen grün. (The watermelon is red on the inside, and green on the outside.)
• Drinnen ist es trocken, aber draußen regnet es. (Inside, it is dry, but outside it is raining.)

Here are three common endings, which sound very similar:

• -ig (roughly like -y in English): eindeutig, abhängig, …
• -lich (roughly -ly in English): nützlich, möglich, persönlich, …
• -isch (roughly -ic(al) in English): praktisch, logisch, …

The first two sound the same in regular speech (in some dialects, all three sound the same). You already encountered this with the numbers (zwanzig).

When you add an ending to the -ig adjectives, it will no longer sound like ch:

• eindeutig: die eindeutige … (now sounds like g)
• möglich: der mögliche … (still sounds like ch)

-bar often corresponds to "-(a)ble" in English:

• sichtbar (visible)
• verfügbar (available)

Yes, there are lots of bars with joke adjective names in Germany :)

These correspond to English "-less" and "-ful".

• hoffnungsvoll (hopeful)
• hoffnungslos (hopeless)

In English, the "-tion" ending is pronounced "-shen". In German, it always becomes "-tsion". It will always be the emphasized syllable, and the word will always be feminine.

• Kommunikation, Lektion, Nation

Similarly, der Patient will sound like "der Patsient".

When nouns ending in -tion are used in an adjective, the ending -a (or -ell) will be used. The resulting adjective will be pronounced on the last syllable:

• international, rational, kommunal, sensationell, …

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".

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).

Wissen and kennen both translate to "to know" in English. Können (to be able to) can also mean "to know" in certain contexts.

• Ich weiß (es) nicht. (I don't know.)
• Ich kenne ihn nicht. (I don't know him.)
• Ich kann ein bisschen Polnisch. (I know a bit of Polish.)

So how to know which one to use?

Kennen is used when talking about people, places and the like. It means that you are aware of its existence. Kennen needs an object.

• Ich kenne diesen Mann nicht! (I don't know this man!)

Wissen is used for knowledge about something. It usually does not have an object. Commonly, it is used with a subordinate clause ("Nebensatz"):

• Ich weiß, wer du bist! (I know who you are.)
• Ich weiß nicht, wann sie kommt. (I don't know when she arrives.)
• Er weiß, dass ich ihn liebe. (He knows that I love him.)

In rare cases, wissen can be used with an object, which might lead to very subtle situations like this:

• Ich kenne dieses Wort nicht (I don't know this word.)
• Ich weiß dieses Wort nicht. (I don't know this word.)

In the first example, you have never seen this word before. In the second example, you have seen it, but you don't know what it means.

Können generally means "be able to", and is generally used like "can/be able to" in English. The only confusing thing is that it can take a language instead of an infinitive, which English cannot:

• Ich kann tanzen (I can dance.)
• Ich kann Deutsch (I can speak German.)

We already used a range of verbs that change the vowel in the second and third person singular :

person	fahren	lesen	essen
ich	fahre	lese	esse
du	fährst	liest	isst
er/sie/es	fährt	liest	isst
wir	fahren	lesen	essen
ihr	fahrt	lest	esst
sie/Sie	fahren	lesen	essen

You also encountered modal verbs which generally have a different vowel in singular and plural, respectively. They also have a simpler (and the same) ending in the first and second person singular.

Wissen (to know) is a full verb. However, it is one of the very few full verbs that conjugates like a modal verb:

pronoun	wollen	mögen	wissen
ich	will	mag	weiß
du	willst	magst	weißt
er/sie/es	will	mag	weiß
wir	wollen	mögen	wissen
ihr	wollt	mögt	wisst
sie	wollen	mögen	wissen

You already noticed that in German, some verb prefixes can split off:

• ankommen — Ich komme an.
• einkaufen — Er kauft ein.

The general rule is: if the prefix is stressed, it splits off.

How to know which ones are stressed?

It might be easiest to remember those that are never stressed. The most important ones are:

• be-, ent-, er-, ver-, zer-

If you encounter a different prefix, guessing that it splits off will most likely be correct.

So far, you have learned two ways to say "I like".

Mögen is used with nouns:

• Ich mag Schokolade! (I like chocolate!)

Gern(e) is an adverb that modifies a verb:

• Ich esse gerne Schokolade. (I like to eat chocolate.)
• Ich lerne gerne Deutsch. (I like to learn German.)
• Ich kaufe gerne ein. (I like to go shopping.)

In this lesson, you learn a third way: gefallen.

• Er gefällt mir. (I like him.)

What's going on?! Literally, it means "He is-pleasing to me." That's why "him" become the subject, and "I" becomes the Dative object in the example above.

Gefallen is normally used if you like the look, sound or feel of something:

• Die Songs gefallen mir. (I like the songs.)
• Das Haus gefällt uns. (We like the house.)

Like mögen, you would only use it with nouns (not with verbs).

Earlier, you learned the verb legen:

• Ich lege den Ball auf den Tisch. (I put the ball on(to) the table.)

Liegen is related, but defines a position:

• Der Ball liegt auf dem Tisch (The ball is on the table.)

Legen roughly corresponds to "lay", liegen to "lie".

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:

• am Montag
• um drei Uhr
• im Juni

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:

• Er schläft nicht auf der Küche. (He does not sleep in the kitchen)
• Man schläft nicht in der Küche! (One does not sleep in the kitchen!)

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).

German normally uses the present tense to indicate the future.

• Ich gehe morgen ins Kino. (I will go to the movies tomorrow.)

On some occasions (for example when making promises or predictions), German does use a future tense. It is very similar to the one in English.

The future tense consists of a conjugated form of werden in the present tense and an infinitive (the base form of the verb).

German	English
ich werde spielen	I will play
du wirst spielen	you will play
er/sie/es wird spielen	he/she/it will play
wir werden spielen	we will play
ihr werdet spielen	you will play
sie/Sie werden spielen	they/you will play

Depending on the context, ich werde spielen translates to "I will play" or "I am going to play". In German, there is no distinction between "will" and "going to".

Be aware that the German verb wollen (to want) is a false friend of the English will :

• Ich will spielen! (I want to play!)

Using werden can be confusing for learners. However, there are clear distinctions between its three main uses :

If werden is used in combination with an adjective or noun, the meaning will be "to become" or "to get":

• Sie wird Mutter. (She's becoming a mother.)
• Ich werde müde. (I'm getting tired.)

The German word bekommen is a confusing false friend to "become":

• Sie bekommt eine Tochter. (She's getting a daughter.)

This case is explained above.

If used in combination with a participle, werden creates one type of passive:

• Der Taxifahrer fährt den Fahrgast. (The taxi driver drives the passenger.)
• Der Fahrgast wird gefahren. (The passenger is being driven.)

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:

• Mann, denn, Mutter, Bälle, backen, Pizza, Katze

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:

• paar, Beere, Boot, … (this only happens with a/e/o)

There might be a silent h behind the vowel:

• fahren, zählen, sehen, ihr, ohne, höher, Uhr, Stühle, …

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):

• die, Biene, spielen, sieben, Beziehung, …

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:

• Buch, da, Abend, wo, Not, Zitrone, …

And here are some short ones:

• an, Onkel, un-, Mama, Hälfte, Zitrone, …

For these, you just have to trust your language feeling, it will normally not be a big problem :)

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
• um drei Uhr
• im Juni

Am Montag, am Mittag. Just "at night there are different rules": in der Nacht and um Mitternacht are irregular.

All of these have and adverbial form: morgens, vormittags, abends, nachts*, …

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):

• dreizehn Uhr neun (literally, "thirteen o'clock nine")

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.

Indirect questions are subordinate clauses in German:

• Was machst du? (direct question, verb in position 2)
• Ich weiß, was du machst! ("I know what you do!", verb at the end)

For questions with a question word, the question word starts the sentece, and the verb ends it.

For yes/no-questions, German uses ob as a placeholder (just like "whether" is used in English):

• Gehst du ins Kino?
• Er fragt, ob du ins Kino gehst.

Je … desto … works roughly like "the … the …" in English:

• The longer I learn German, the happier I become.
• Je länger ich Deutsch lerne, desto glücklicher werde ich.

However, the sentence structure is unusual, when compared to English. For the above sentence, it is:

• je + (comparison) (subject) (rest) (verb), desto (comparison) (verb) (subject) (rest)

The je part is a subordinate clause, so the verb will be at the end. Because the je+comparison is in the first position, the subject has to come immediately after, followed by the rest of the sentence.

The desto part is a main clause. The verb is in position 2, and desto+comparison are in the first position. This is not unusual in German, as you can put all kinds of elements in the first position:

| Position 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | |---|---|---|---|---] | Ich |esse |morgen |mit einem Freund |zu Mittag.| |Morgen |esse |ich |mit einem Freund |zu Mittag.| |Mit einem Freund |esse |ich |morgen |zu Mittag.| |Zu Mittag |esse |ich |morgen |mit einem Freund.|

Notice how the verb is always in the second position. The subject is either at the beginning (the default), or directly behind the verb.

(-)mal can often be translated with "time(s)" in English:

German	English
zehn mal	ten times
manchmal	sometimes
das erste Mal	the first time

In addition, it has a function as a "modal particle". These are words that give a sentence an additional flavor, and can't be easily translated. Modal particles are almost never emphasized.

• Komm mal nach Hause! (I'm impatient, come home!)
• Kann ich mal vorbei? (Can I get through? I won't bother you for long.)

We don't teach modal particles in this course (because you can't translate them). But you will encounter mal schauen in this lesson, which roughly means "let's see".

You already learned some modal verbs:

pronoun	wollen	mögen	können
ich	will	mag	kann
du	willst	magst	kannst
er/sie/es	will	mag	kann
wir	wollen	mögen	können
ihr	wollt	mögt	könnt
sie	wollen	mögen	können

Modal verbs are the same in the first and third person singular.

They also often change their vowel. The vowel in the singular will be different from the vowel of the infinitive.

In this lesson, you will learn the remaining five modal verbs.

Consider these three:

pronoun	müssen	dürfen	wollen
ich	muss	darf	will
du	musst	darfst	willst
er/sie/es	muss	darf	will
wir	müssen	dürfen	wollen
ihr	müsst	dürft	wollt
sie	müssen	dürfen	wollen

As in können und wollen, the vowel in the singular is different. The first and third person are the same in the plural and in the singular (unlike normal verbs).

Here are the last two:

pronoun	sollen	möchten
ich	soll	möchte
du	sollst	möchtest
er/sie/es	soll	möchte
wir	sollen	möchten
ihr	sollt	möchtet
sie	sollen	möchte

sollen does not change its vowel. Otherwise it works roughly like "shall".

möchten is unusual. It is actually the subjunctive form of "mögen", which is why it has the same ending system as subjunctive and past tense verbs. You will learn about those later in the course.

If you remember that mögen translates to "like" in English, it makes perfect sense that its subjunctive möchten means "would like to".

• Ich mag Pizza. (I like Pizza.)
• Ich möchte Pizza. (I would like (to eat) Pizza.)

As in English, modal verbs are combined with the infinitive of a verb:

• Ich schwimme. Ich kann schwimmen. (I swim. I can swim.)

Because of the peculiarity of German sentence structure, the infinitive verb will appear at the end in a normal sentence:

• Ich muss jeden Tag arbeiten. (I have to work every day.)

A common problem for English speakers learning German is to use müssen right. Here's the problem:

• Ich muss schlafen. (I must sleep.)
• Ich muss nicht schlafen. (I don't need to sleep.)

Actually, the problem is in English. Let's look at the same example again, but use "have to" instead:

• Ich muss schlafen. (I have to sleep.)
• Ich muss nicht schlafen. (I don't have to to sleep.)

As you can see, if you think "have to" instead of "must", you'll be fine.

But how to say "must not"?

• Ich darf nicht schlafen. (I must not sleep.)
• Ich darf schlafen. (I'm allowed to sleep.)

As you can see, dürfen works pretty much like "may" in English.

• Darf ich? (May I?)
• Nein, du darfst nicht. (No, you may not.)
• Oh, schade.

There are two words spelled damit in German.

One is a combination of a pronoun and a preposition (da+mit). It means "with that" .

• Das ist ein Stift. Damit schreibe ich. (That's a pen. With that, I write.)
• Ich habe ein Deutschzertifikat. Damit kann ich in Deutschland studieren. (I have a German certificate. With that, I can study in Germany.)

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 (with has to be in position 2).

The other is a subordinating conjunction. It translates to "so that":

• Ich kaufe einen Stift, damit ich schreiben kann. (I buy a pen so that I can write.)
• Ich lerne Deutsch, damit ich in Deutschland studieren kann. (I learn German so that I can study in Germany.)

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:

• Ich fahre zum Skifahren nach Japan. (I go to Japan for skiing.)
• Zum Lachen geht er in den Keller. (He goes to the basement to laugh.)

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:

• Ich gehe ins Restaurant, um mit Freunden Pizza zu essen. (I go to the restaurant in order to eat pizza with friends.)

To do this, you start with an infinitive construction:

• mit Freunden im Supermarkt einkaufen (to go shopping in the supermarket with friends)

If you were to use this in a sentence, it would look like this:

• Ich kaufe mit Freunden im Supermarkt ein.

The um goes to the beginning of the infinitive construction. The zu goes were the verb part (in the above example, kaufen splits off.

• Ich fahre in die Stadt, um mit Freunden im Supermarkt einzukaufen.

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.

• Ich gebe ihm mein Handy, damit er seine Mutter anrufen kann. (I give him my phone so that he can call his mom)

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).

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.

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 suffing -innen to the singular of the male variant, e.g. die Bäckerinnen and die Schülerinnen.

Keep in mind that, in some cases, the plural comes with an umlauted stem vowel. This applies to the female variant as well, e.g. der Koch becomes die Köche and die Köchin becomes die Köchinnen.

The Perfekt is used to describe past events. In spoken German, the Perfekt is preferred over the Präteritum. Using the Präteritum in normal conversation may sound unnatural or pretentious.

• Gestern habe ich Pizza gegessen. (Yesterday, I ate pizza.)

In contrast to the English present perfect, the German Perfekt is not used to describe events that started in the past and are still ongoing. In such cases, German speakers use the present tense :

• Ich lebe seit drei Jahren hier. (I have been living here for three years.)

The following verbs are normally not used in the Perfekt. Use Präteritum instead.

English	Verb	Präteritum
to be	sein	ich war
to have	haben	ich hatte
to know	wissen	ich wusste
may	dürfen	ich durfte
can	können	ich konnte
must	müssen	ich musste
shall	sollen	ich sollte
want to	wollen	ich wollte

The Perfekt is formed by combining a conjugated form of haben (to have) or sein (to be) in the present tense with the past participle of the main verb.

• Gestern hat er nur zwei Stunden geschlafen. (Yesterday, he only slept for two hours.)

The vast majority of verbs take haben (just like in English).

Verbs that indicate a motion normally take sein as a helper verb. Here are some common examples:

Infinitiv	Perfekt
gehen	ich bin gegangen
laufen	ich bin gelaufen
rennen	ich bin gerannt
schwimmen	ich bin geschwommen
fliegen	ich bin geflogen

However, verbs that indicate some other change also take sein:

Infinitiv	Perfekt
aufwachen (wake up)	ich bin aufgewacht
einschlafen (fall asleep)	ich bin eingeschlafen
sterben (die)	er ist gestorben

There are a few other verbs, for example

• bleiben (to stay) - ich bin geblieben
• passieren (to happen) - es ist passiert

None of these verbs have an object (they are "intransitive"). If they have a variant with an object ("transitive"), they take haben:

• Ich bin im Auto gefahren. (fahren: movement)
• Ich habe das Auto gefahren. (you operate the car. The movement is secondary)
• Ich bin Auto gefahren. (Auto is NOT an object here. It's a complement, like Deutsch lernen, similar to ein|kaufen

Regular verbs

Most verbs are regular (these are called "weak"). For these, creating the perfect participle is easy. Just add ge- to the front, and replace the infinitive ending with -(e)t:

• machen - gemacht
• arbeiten - gearbeitet

Irregular verbs

German has a number of irregular verbs. Most of these are "strong" verbs. For these, you add ge-, but you add -en. There might be a vowel change involved. Rarely, the change in the word stem is more drastic.

Infinitiv	Partizip II
schlafen	geschlafen
trinken	getrunken
schwimmen	geschwommen
essen	gegessen
gehen	gegangen

While most verbs are weak, many of the most common verbs are strong.

There is a small group of irregular verbs that follow a different system (called " mixed verbs "). Here are most of them:

Infinitiv	Partizip II
wissen	gewusst
rennen	gerannt
brennen	gebrannt
kennen	gekannt
denken	gedacht
bringen	gebracht

Why is there no ge-? Why is it inside the participle?

Once you have the correct form of the basic verb, here are two more rules you need to know:

German verbs have two kinds of prefixes. Some can split off. These are always emphasized:

• (einkaufen) Ich kaufe im Supermarkt ein.

Verbs like this will have the -ge- between the prefix and the verb stem:

• Ich habe im Supermarkt eingekauft.
• Ich bin im Bus eingeschlafen.

Here are some common prefixes that are always emphasized:

• ab-, an-, auf-, aus-, bei-, ein-, mit-, nach-, vor-, zu-

Other prefixes are not emphasized. They never split off. For these (and any other verbs that are not emphasized on the first syllable), do not add a ge- prefix . This includes all verbs that end in -ieren (as these are emphasized at the -ie-).

• (verkaufen) Ich verkaufe mein Auto
• Ich habe mein Auto verkauft.
• Ich habe gestern verschlafen.
• Er hat Musik studiert.

These prefixes are never emphasized:

• be-, ent-, er-, ge-, ver-, zer-

A few prefixes might be emphasized or not.

When an adjective comes before a noun, its ending will change according to this noun.

• Die Katze ist alt.

• Das ist eine alte Katze.

You can think of the adjective endings as "markers", that kind of mark what part of speech the adjective belongs to.

Nominative

Remember that the nominative case is used for the subject of a sentence. These are the nominative adjectives :

gender	article	adjective	noun
masc.	der	rote	Hut
	ein	roter	Hut
neut.	das	rote	Hemd
	ein	rotes	Hemd
fem.	die	rote	Rose
	eine	rote	Rose
Plural	die	roten	Schuhe
	keine	roten	Schuhe
	-	rote	Schuhe

While that might look a bit chaotic, there is not so much going on:

1) Masculine: Either the article, or the adjective must have the -r ending. The same goes for neuter and -s

• Der kleine Hund spielt.
• Ein kleiner Hund spielt.

2) Feminine and Plural end in -e. If you add an article, you also have to add an -n.

• Die alte Katze schläft.
• Alte Katzen schlafen.
• Die alten Katzen schlafen.
• Das sind keine alten Katzen.

Do you remember that quite often, the accusative looks like the nominative? Specifically, only the articles for masculine nouns change .

The same goes for the adjectives. They are the same as for nominative; the only exception is for masculine nouns. The changes are marked in bold in the table below.

3) masculine accusative: adjective ends in -en

• Die alte Katze schläft. Der alte Mann sieht die alte Katze (no change)
• Die alte Katze sieht den alten Mann.

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

Der Weg" (with a long e*) roughly means "the path".

• Der Weg ist lang. (The path is long.)

Weg (with a short, open e) roughly means "away".

Here are some examples:

• Geh weg! (Go away!)
• Ich bin weg! (I'm gone!)

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.

• Der kleine Hund spielt.
• Ein kleiner Hund spielt.

2) Feminine and Plural end in -e. If you add an article, you also have to add an -n.

• Die alte Katze schläft.
• Alte Katzen schlafen.
• Die alten Katzen schlafen.
• Das sind keine alten Katzen.

Obwohl translates to "although", while trotzdem translates to "however/nevertheless".

• Ich bin müde, obwohl ich Kaffee getrunken habe. (I'm tired, although I drank coffee.)
• Ich habe Kaffee getrunken. Trotzdem bin ich müde. (I drank coffee. Nevertheless, I'm tired.)

Trotzdem is an adverb. It is part of a sentence and will replace the subject if it appears in the first position.

Obwohl is a subordinating conjunction. It will send the verb to the last position. See the lesson "Conjunctions" for more details.

These three adverbs are synonymous. They can be used interchangeably.

The conjunctions weil and denn are used in the form "Statement, weil/denn Reason".

• Ich bin müde, weil ich nicht geschlafen habe. (subordinating conjunction)
• Ich bin müde, denn ich habe nicht geschlafen. (coordinating conjunction)

Darum and its sisters are used in the form "Reason, darum Statement" (or "Statement, darum Result").

• Ich habe nicht geschlafen. Darum bin ich müde.

Many prepositions can be combined with wo- and da-. Da roughly translates to "that" here, wo normally to "what" (not "where" which is its normal meaning).

wo-	da-
woran	daran
worauf	darauf
woraus	daraus
wobei	dabei
wodurch	dadurch
wofür	dafür
wogegen	dagegen
wohinter	dahinter
worin	darin
womit	damit
wonach	danach
worum	darum
worüber	darüber
worunter	darunter
wovon	davon
wovor	davor
wozu	dazu
wozwischen	dazwischen

If the preposition starts with a vowel, there will be a binding r. So worum is pronounced "wo-rum", not "wor-um".

The Präteritum (also called Imperfekt) is used to describe past events. Its use is mostly limited to formal writing and formal speech. In informal writing and speech , the Perfekt (e.g. Ich habe geschlafen) tends to be preferred. Using the Präteritum in normal conversation may sound unnatural or pretentious.

The following verbs are normally not used in the Perfekt. Use Präteritum instead.

English	Verb	Präteritum
to be	sein	ich war
to have	haben	ich hatte
to know	wissen	ich wusste
may	dürfen	ich durfte
can	können	ich konnte
must	müssen	ich musste
shall	sollen	ich sollte
want to	wollen	ich wollte

The verb möchten (would like to/to want to), which is technically the subjunctive of mögen, does not have a preterite form. Instead, the preterite of wollen (to want [to]) is used.

The Präteritum of regular weak verbs is formed by adding -(e)te, -(e)test, -(e)ten, or -(e)tet to the stem.

sagen (to say)

Present	Präteritum
ich sage (I say)	ich sagte (I said)
du sagst (you say)	du sagtest (you said)
er/sie/es sagt (he/she/it says)	er/sie/es sagte (he/she/it said)
wir sagen (we say)	wir sagten (we said)
ihr sagt (you say)	ihr sagtet (you said)
sie/Sie sagen (they/you say)	sie/Sie sagten (they/you said)

Some weak verbs, although generally regular, have a slightly irregular verb stem in the Präteritum. These are mostly modal verbs. Be sure not to use the umlaut in the Präteritum for these, as that will change it to the Konjunktiv II (subjunctive) mood.

The endings will be the same as for other weak verbs.

• haben - ich hatte, du hattest, …
• können - ich konnte, du konntest, …
• müssen - ich musste, du musstest, …
• dürfen - ich durfte, du durftest, …

To form the Präteritum of strong verbs, you need to find the modified verb stem first. Google "German irregular verbs" to get a list.

To this modified stem, you add the following endings:

Person	Ending
ich	-
du	-st
er/sie/es	-
wir	-en
ihr	-t
sie/Sie	-en

Notice that these are the same endings as for the modal verbs in the present tense. First and third person are the same in singular and plural.

finden (to find)

Present	Präteritum
ich finde (I find)	ich fand (I found)
du findest (you find)	du fandest (you found)
er/sie/es findet (he/she/it finds)	er/sie/es fand (he/she/it found)
wir finden (we find)	wir fanden (we found)
ihr findet (you find)	ihr fandet (you found)
sie/Sie finden (they/you find)	sie/Sie fanden (they/you found)

sein (to be)

Present	Präteritum
ich bin (I am)	ich war (I was)
du bist (you are)	du warst (you were)
er/sie/es ist (he/she/it is)	er/sie/es war (he/she/it was)
wir sind (we are)	wir waren (we were)
ihr seid (you are)	ihr wart (you were)
sie/Sie sind (they/you are)	sie/Sie waren (they/you were)

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.

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.

• "Why did he die?"
• "Kunigunde gave him something."

The original meaning survives in the word die Mitgift (dowry).

Believe it or not, people still use landline phones, especially in business contexts. A (tele)phone can be a cellphone or a landline phone. The word (tele)phone is to the word cellphone what the word pet is to the word dog, i.e. generic vs. specific.

• the tele(phone) = das Telefon

• the cellphone (the mobile phone) = das Handy / das Mobiltelefon

Regardless of whether you always refer to your cellphone as a phone, in this course, you will not be able to use (tele)phone/Telefon and cellphone/Handy interchangeably.

Rufen translates to "call":

• Ich rufe meinen Hund. (I call my dog.)

The word used for calling via phone is anrufen:

• Ich rufe meinen Bruder an. (I call my brother.)

Because people used to call the police long before phones existed, German uses rufen for this:

• Ich ruf(e) die Polizei!!

Unlike English, the German word die Information has a singular and a plural form.

Der Fernseher refers to a TV set. Das Fernsehen refers to TV in general.

• Ich habe gestern einen Fernseher gekauft. (I bought a TV yesterday.)
• Ich bin im Fernsehen! (I'm on TV!)

"Ich bin im Fernseher!" would mean "I'm inside the TV set!".

• Ich sehe fern. Ich habe ferngesehen.
• Ich frühstücke. Ich habe gefrühstückt.

Why does one split, but not the other?

Sehen is interpreted as a verb by itself. Thus, fern is interpreted as the prefix. Because it is emphasized, it will split off. Because it splits off, the -ge- of the participle will end up inside the word.

Stücken is not a verb. Frühstücken is a verb that was created from the noun das Frühstück . Hence, the first syllable, although emphasized, will not split off.

German normally uses the present tense to indicate the future.

• Ich gehe morgen ins Kino. (I will go to the movies tomorrow.)

On some occasions (for example when making promises or predictions), German does use a future tense. It is very similar to the one in English.

The future tense consists of a conjugated form of werden in the present tense and an infinitive (the base form of the verb).

German	English
ich werde spielen	I will play
du wirst spielen	you will play
er/sie/es wird spielen	he/she/it will play
wir werden spielen	we will play
ihr werdet spielen	you will play
sie/Sie werden spielen	they/you will play

Depending on the context, ich werde spielen translates to "I will play" or "I am going to play". In German, there is no distinction between "will" and "going to".

Be aware that the German verb wollen (to want) is a false friend of the English "will" :

• Ich will spielen! (I want to play!)

Using werden can be confusing for learners. However, there are clear distinctions between its three main uses :

If werden is used in combination with an adjective or noun, the meaning will be "to become" or "to get":

• Sie wird Mutter. (She's becoming a mother.)
• Ich werde müde. (I'm getting tired.)

The German word bekommen is a confusing false friend to "become":

• Sie bekommt eine Tochter. (She's getting a daughter.)

This case is explained above.

If used in combination with a participle, werden creates one type of passive:

• Der Taxifahrer fährt den Fahrgast. (The taxi driver drives the passenger.)
• Der Fahrgast wird gefahren. (The passenger is being driven.)

Die Seite can mean "the side" or "the page", depending on context.

• Ich stehe auf der anderen Seite. (I am standing on the other side.)
• Ich lese die Seite. (I read the page.)

In the context of the internet, it refers to a web page, as well as to a web site.

WLAN is pronounced [ˈveːlaːn] in German. Unfortunately, the computer voice of the German course refuses to acknowledge this, and insists on pronouncing it wrong.

Drucken means "to print". The machine commonly used for that is der Drucker .

• Ich muss noch zehn Seiten drucken! (I have to print ten more pages!)

Drücken means "to press". Der Drücker may refer to an electric button, or to a hug.

• Der Drücker am Aufzug ist kaputt. (The button of the lift is broken.)
• Drücker! (Hugs!)

The past perfect is used to describe past events, more specifically events that happened way back in the past or any time before another event in the past.

past perfect	preterite
Ich hatte ihn schon gesehen,	als er mich sah
I had already seen him	when he saw me

The past perfect is formed almost the same way as the Perfekt. The only difference is that the helper verb will be in the past tense:

• Ich habe gegessen. (I have eaten.)

• Ich hatte gegessen. (I had eaten.)

• Ich bin geschwommen. (I have swum.)

• Ich war geschwommen. (I had swum.)

Refer to the "Perfect" lesson in order to review how to form the perfect participle that goes with it.

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 Unversitäten 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).

The future perfect talks about actions that will have been completed in the future. It's used pretty much like the English future perfect, but it's formed slightly differently.

The future perfect consists of the future tense of the auxiliary verb haben or sein, and the past participle of the main verb.

The vast majority of verbs take haben. Verbs that take sein have to be intransitive, i.e. they can't take an object, and they have to indicate a change of position or condition. sein (to be), bleiben (to stay), and passieren (to happen) take sein even though they don't indicate a change of position or condition.

Please refer to the "Perfect" lesson to review how to form the participle, and for more details on when to use haben or sein.

essen (to eat):

The auxiliary verb that goes with essen is haben. All you need to do is form the future tense of haben (ich werde haben) and add the past participle of the main verb essen (gegessen) to the left of haben.

German	English
ich werde gegessen haben	I will have eaten
du wirst gegessen haben	you will have eaten
er/sie/es wird gegessen haben	he/she/it will have eaten
wir werden gegessen haben	we will have eaten
ihr werdet gegessen haben	you will have eaten
sie werden gegessen haben	they will have eaten
Sie werden gegessen haben	you will have eaten

gehen (to leave/to go):

The auxiliary verb that goes with gehen is sein. All you need to do is form the future tense of sein (ich werde sein) and add the past participle of the main verb gehen (gegangen) to the left of sein.

German	English
ich werde gegangen sein	I will have left
du wirst gegangen sein	you will have left
er/sie/es wird gegangen sein	he/she/it will have left
wir werden gegangen sein	we will have left
ihr werdet gegangen sein	you will have left
sie werden gegangen sein	they will have left
Sie werden gegangen sein	you will have left