Category: German Grammar

One of the challenges English speakers face when learning German is expressing likes or dislikes. It’s not uncommon for learners to find it tricky to differentiate between saying they like doing something and saying they like something, as English does not distinguish between them. When expressing a liking for an object, German uses the transitive […]

There are several different ways to form plurals in German. It can be difficult to predict plural endings with complete certainty, and therefore, once again, learners are advised to learn the plural forms when they first encounter a noun in the same way that they would learn the genders of nouns in German. Learners of […]

During German lessons, you notice how German verb endings change depending on the subject they accompany. English verbs do the same but only add the suffix -s in the third person singular present tense. The flection of the English verb does not change in any other person, singular or plural, apart from the verb to […]

After a few German lessons, you will want to say: I do not understand. Saying it in German is even better. The verb ‘to understand’ in German is ‘verstehen’. The conjugation of the verb in the present tense is as follows: ich  verstehe du verstehst er/sie/es versteht   wir verstehen ihr versteht sie/Sie verstehen  I […]

Whist learning German, grammatical queries do come up. I want to use this opportunity to illustrate another topic that students ask me during their German courses: What is the different usage of the prepositions ‘zu’ and ‘nach’? The preposition ‘nach’ can mean after when used with time; for example, Nach dem Fußballspiel gehen wir ein […]

Studying German, learners come across modal verbs expressing desire, ability, obligations or probability. In German, we conjugate the modal verb, which retains the second position in the main clause. The main verb is added in its infinitive form to the end of the sentence. For example: Ich darf meine Hausaufgaben nicht vergessen. Challenges What is […]

A Beemer, or BMW, made by the famous German car manufacturer Bayrische Motorenwerke in Munich, is a popular accessory for many and complements the German language learning experience perfectly. The car’s satnav and onboard systems set to German helps to pick up new vocabulary and learn the German imperative when the friendly satnav lady reminds […]

Genus The definite articles indicate the grammatical gender of nouns. Der – masculine noun, die – feminine noun, das – neutral noun. Grammatical and biological gender ought not to be mixed up. However, with people, grammatical gender coincides with biological gender. Tense Tenses are forms of verbs indicating when something is taking place, has taken […]

The possessive article Possessive articles indicate to whom or what something belongs. For example: Is this your pen? No, this is my pen. The conjunctions A conjunction joins words or groups of words. Some conjunctions in German are und (and), oder (or), aber (but), weil (because), and dass (that). The infinitive An infinitive is the […]

The definite article A definite article (“the” in English) refers to a specific noun. In German, these are die, der and das, and all their various case and gender forms (dem, den, des, das, der, die etc.). The indefinite article An indefinite article (“a” or “an” in English) refers to a noun whose exact identity […]

Being able to understand grammar terminology is crucial. But many people learning German find it challenging to come to grips with it. In 4 weekly instalments, we are explaining in simple terms the most important terminology that you may want to know before attending German lessons or classes: The noun A noun is a person, […]

The perfect tense (das Perfekt) is the past tense that German speakers most often use when describing events that have been completed. Language learners sometimes get thrown by using two different auxiliary verbs, or helping verbs, when forming the perfect in German. The helping verb, together with the past participle, in layman’s terms, sometimes referred […]

Sometimes, while teaching German, students ask why German nouns change genders. It is ‘die Tür’, a feminine noun, and suddenly somewhere mid-sentence, it is ‘der Tür’. ‘Der’ is the definite article for masculine nouns. Do German nouns have gender identity issues? A justifiable question from an unsuspecting student or an intelligent question from a grind? […]

Teaching German at all levels, a regular task is to explain grammatical cases to my students, who tend to see them as alien concepts, but cases in German are easily explained. Genitive and Nominative German has four cases: nominative, accusative, dative and genitive. The genitive is the easiest: it donates possession. The nominative case is […]

When learning German, you will have come across reflexive verbs. Reflexive verbs also exist in English and can sometimes be translated as ‘myself’, ‘yourself’ etc. For example, He is pouring himself a cup of tea. – Er schenkt sich eine Tasse Tee ein. What does the term ‘reflexive verb’ actually mean? The verb has an […]

The brothers Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm are, of course, famed for fairy tales like Hansel and Gretel, Rapunzel, Rumpelstiltskin and Cinderella, known and loved by children around the world 200 years after the brothers published their first collection of folk tales. However, the brothers were not just storytellers. They were also trained lawyers and linguists, […]

We looked at the Present Tense and Simple Past in one of our previous blogs. This blog is dedicated to the Perfect Tense in German. Many of you, who have already begun to learn German, may have heard that the Perfect is more commonly used in spoken German than other tenses describing the past. That […]

Our last blog looked at irregular verbs in the present tense. We want to dedicate this blog to irregular verbs in the simple past. Verbs are sometimes categorised into regular, irregular and mixed verbs. Mixed verbs are irregular verbs but do not change their stem in the present tense. Mixed and irregular verbs constantly change […]

Irregular verbs, sometimes called strong verbs, have irregularities in the present tense indicative or the simple past indicative and the past participle. In today’s blog, we would like to look closely at irregular verbs in the present tense indicative. Indicative means that we are stating facts when using that verb. If you are not already […]

I see students struggle with the German prepositions ‘ an’ and ‘auf’ during my lessons. Both describe locations and require either the Accusative or the Dative case. If we can ask ‘wohin’ (where to), then the preposition requires the Accusative, and if we ask ‘wo’ (where), then the Dative is needed. This begs the question […]

In a previous blog article, I wrote about the challenge learners of the German language can face when declining adjectives. There are four cases in German, 3 genders and one plural. There are three ways of declining an adjective: with an indefinite article, with a definite article and without an article (zero declension). That comes […]

During my German lessons, I see many students placing the finite verb in the 3rd position, as they would in their mother tongue. In German, however, the basic rule about word order in simple sentences or main clauses is that the finite (conjugated) verb is always the ‘second idea’. The finite verb is the one […]

If you have just started taking German lessons or studied the German language for some time, then rest assured that understanding German tenses is much more straightforward than many think. In a previous blog, I already touched on the subject. Today I would like to focus on how I go about teaching German tenses during […]

Whilst providing German tuition, students often ask me what the Accusative and the Dative are. Accusative and Dative are cases that tell the function of nouns in a sentence. Many languages use cases, including English. In German, the direct object requires the Accusative case, and the indirect object requires the Dative. The direct object in […]

In my previous blog post, I wrote about the declension of adjectives, and I summed up the blog by stressing the importance of knowing the gender of nouns. Those of you who have already started learning German will most certainly have come across the definite articles der, die, das and may have wondered how to […]

Declining adjectives is one of the most challenging parts of German. Most students taking German courses or private lessons with us struggle with that aspect of the language, even intermediate and advanced learners. Adjectival declension is dependent on the article that precedes the adjective. There are three ways of declining adjectives: with a definite article, […]

During many years of teaching German to English speakers, I found that many students struggle with the same aspects of German due to the different structures of English. This blog post serves to highlight recurring problems to help learners of German to overcome these challenges. For example, yesterday, I was teaching a regular student in […]