Chinese, Mandarin

Spanish

English

Hindi

Arabic

Portuguese

Bengali

Russian

Japanese

Punjabi

German

Javanese

Malay

Telugu

Vietnamese

Korean

French

Marathi

Tamil

Urdu

Turkish

Italian

Chinese, Yue / Cantonese

Thai

Gujarati

Chinese, Jin

Chinese, Min Nan

Persian, Dari

Persian, Western

Polish

Pashto

Kannada

Chinese, Xiang

Malayalam

Sundanese

Hausa

Odia

Burmese

Chinese, Hakka

Ukrainian

Bihari, Bhojpuri

Tagalog

Yoruba

Bihari, Maithili

Uzbek

Sindhi

Amharic

Fula

Romanian

Oromo

Igbo

Azerbaijani

Chinese, Gan

Dutch

Kurdish, Central

Kurdish, Northern

Kurdish, Southern

Malagasy

Lahnda, Saraiki

Nepali

Sinhalese

Chittagonian

Zhuang

Khmer

Turkmen

Assamese

Madurese

Somali

Marwari

Bihari, Magahi

Haryanvi

Hungarian

Chhattisgarhi

Greek, Modern

Chewa

Dakhini

Akan, Twi

Akan, Fante

Kazakh

Chinese, Min Bei

Sylheti

Zulu

Czech

Kinyarwanda

Marwari, Dhundhari

Haitian Creole

Chinese, Min Dong

Ilocano

Quechua

Kirundi

Swedish

Hmong

Shona

Uyghur

Hiligaynon

Mossi

Xhosa

Belarusian

Balochi

Hallo

People

Items

Adjectives

So far we haven't really used our adjectives as adjectives.
 We have been treating them as adverbs.
 Something is ...


	In this lesson we will use them as true adjectives.
	That means that they will be declined.
	Don't worry, right now we simply add the letter -e at the end.
	So klein becomes kleine, gross becomes grosse and so on...

Adjectives 2

Let's spice it up a little.
	German is the language of story telling.
	From now on, I will tell you a story, here and there interrupted by a little grammar lessson.

<h4>Die Geschichte des kleinen Mannes (The Story of the Little Man)</h4>

	Der kleine Mann (the little man) has a double meaning in German:
	<ol>
	 <li>it can mean: the man is small of size</li>
	 <li>it can also mean: the man is unimportant, neither rich nor famous, neither especially handsome or talented, just the little average man who is struggling his way through life</li>
 </ol>

Story time

Die Geschichte des kleinen Mannes - Teil 1

In - a preposition with Dative 


 The preposition in can be used with two cases:
	<ul>
	 <li>Dative - indicating the place of action: in / inside (as we are about to learn now)</li>
	 <li>Accusative - indicating the place to which the action is proceeding: in / into (we will look into this later)</li>
 </ul>


	Let's start with some good news!
	A singular noun remains the same in the dative case, except for some weak words, most of which refer to persons or animals.
	You will learn about this later.


 However the article before a noun in the dative case does change. Let's have a look at this!

<table class="ui celled table">
 <thead>
 <tr>
 <th></th>
 <th>Masculine</th>
 <th>Feminine</th>
 <th>Neuter</th>
 </tr>
 </thead>
 <tbody>
 <tr>
 <td>Nominative</td>
 <td>der Mann</td>
 <td>die Frau</td>
 <td>das Kind</td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <td>Dative</td>
 <td>dem Mann(to the man)</td>
 <td> der Frau (to the woman)</td>
 <td>dem Kind (to the child)</td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <td></td>
 <td>einem Mann(to a man)</td>
 <td>einer Frau (to a woman)</td>
 <td>einem Kind(to a child)</td>
 </tr>
 </tbody>
</table>

Let's try this out with the phrase in a company.
in + die Firma (in indefinite dative case) 
in einer Firma

Oooops ! This title happened rather by accident... Can't change it now. Let's make use of the situation and test if you know your stuff. Let's remix all the words and create some new sentences before we go on.

Test

Emotions

Die Geschichte des kleinen Mannes (Fortsetzung - follow up)

das gleiche... / das Gleiche / dasselbe

 Welcome to a subject where even German people make mistakes. XD And yet it is so easy...


	You have met already das gleiche and das Gleiche both meaning the same.
But have you wondered why sometimes it is spelled with a capital letter, at other times not ?
 Here is the answer:
	
	When gleich is an adjective it doesn't take a capital, like all the other adjectives.
	der kleine Mann - the little man 
	der gleiche Mann - the same man
	If you leave the noun (here: Mann) out,Gleiche becomes the noun and therefore acquires the right to a capital. 
	der gleiche Mann - the same man
	 der Gleiche - the same (one) 
	Alles klar? (everything clear?)
	
	Let's move a step on: dasselbe (always spelled like this) means - Oh you will be surprised...
 the same	
	So what the heck ...
	das Gleiche is a similar one. If I say: 
	Ich habe das gleiche Telefon wie du. - (I have the same phone as you)
	 I mean that I have a phone of the same brand.
Ich trage das gleiche T-Shirt wie er. (I wear the same T-shirt as he.
We have a similar looking T-shirt, maybe of the same colour or of the same brand... 
Ich trage dasselbe T-Shirt wie er. (I wear the same T-shirt as he.)
 We have just one T-shirt between us. Maybe I wear it on Mondays, he wears it on Tuesdays... 
Ich esse das Gleiche wie gestern. (I eat the same as yesterday.)
I cooked the same dish again. 
Ich esse dasselbe wie gestern. (I eat the same food as yesterday.
I am having leftovers.
 That's it. In an ideal world this would be it. But here we have to do with a common mistake done by native German speakers. They tend to treat both terms as synonymous. Be patient with them. Forgive their little shortcomings and speak correctly yourself.:D

Das gleiche vs. das Gleiche vs. dasselbe

Test part 2

Questions

Essen (food)

Let's have some fun!

German words can be combined to form a new meaning:
 der Käse + das Brot = das Käsebrot

the cheese + the sandwich = the cheese sandwich

	That sounds pretty easy and so it is. It gives you already hundreds of options to combine the vocabulary that you know by now. However there is a nag.

Sometimes you have to insert one, two or even three letters inbetween the words you combine. Those letters can be: e, n, en, s, er, ens
What is worse: There are no rules for it. Well, of course there are rules. Knowing Germans... We are the masters of creating rules and regulations XD

However in this particular case the rules are abundant and to each single one of them there are exceptions... so finally you will have to do the entire thing by intuition. I propose to you a game, getting you through several levels, hinting at rules and preparing you to feel like a native speaker...
Are you ready for it?

Right now we start on Level 1 - Nothing to insert Just paste the words together. As for the article: The article of the second word counts for the block.
e.g. der Käse + das Brot
 = das Käsebrot
Let's go!

Combo Game Level 1

Ready for the next level?


	When feminine words ending in -e are the first word of a combo, we add an -n to this word.
	We call this a Fugen-n.
	(We is a great overstatement.
	Nobody I know of (including myself) has ever thought of calling it anything.
	We simply do it and don't even notice that we do...)


	Let's look at some examples:
	Feminine words ending in -e: die Suppe / die Tomate / die Karotte / die Orange
	die Tomate + n + die Suppe = die Tomatensuppe 


	Alles klar? Let's go!

Combo Game Level 2

Combo Game Level Test

Die Geschichte des kleinen Mannes - Teil 4: Das Abenteuer

Dritter Teil: Aus dem Tagebuch des kleinen Mannes

Questions 2

Dative - Revision

Accusative - Revision

Dative - for the indirect object

Die Geschichte des kleinen Mannes Teil 5 - Pausenende

Let’s talk about German word order.
Rule No.1: Never separate verb and Subject. In whatever place or order you want to put them, keep them holding hands.
Der Mann ißt den Apfel. (The man eats the apple.) – Der Mann = Subject , ißt = verb 
 Rule No.2 : The verb comes after the Subject, except for : 
 - Questions: Ißt der Mann den Apfel ? (Does the man eat the apple ?) Note that the man and the apple are still together. Warum ißt der Mann den Apfel ? (Why does the man eat the apple ?)
 - Conditional phrases: Ißt der Mann den Apfel, dann ißt die Frau die Orange. (if the man eats the apple, then the woman eats the orange.) 
 - when an adverbial determination comes before (time, place...): Am Morgen ißt der Mann den Apfel.
 - The object comes before the subject noun phrase: Den Apfel ißt der Mann. - A rather unnatural choice. I would use it maybe after my half deaf grandma asks for the fifth time : « What is he eating ? » or in a nursery rhyme, but anyway we are playing here through all options... 
 However we hit here some important point to German sentence structure. The first words gets the most importance. It is a bit like the Japanese topic marker, oh I shouldn’t meddle with this.... but we are talking now about the apple and what happens to it. The man is not so important, he is only mentioned, because of the disaster that happens to the apple... 
 Let’s put in a time expression. Am Morgen (in the morning) Usually time expressions go to the sentence start. Let’s do it this way for now. Which means that our morning gets all the importance. We are talking now about things happening in the morning. The apple is no longer important and gets kicked to the back. He is just part of a morning event.
 Am Morgen ißt der Mann den Apfel. – So the word becomes : Time expression – our verb/ subject block (always reversed after adverbial determinations - > Rule 2 exeption No. 3 – doesn’t that feel German XD) and object 
 Of course I can play around and make other things more important than the time of day.
 If I want to make our apple important again, I kick the time expression to the end of the sentence.
 Den Apfel ißt der Mann am Morgen. – In this sentence we are talking again about the apple and when it is eaten. We don’t really care if the guy eats anything besides. Also whether it is the man or anybody else is not really of our concern. What is important is that our apple gets eaten in the morning. – Object - verb/ subject block (always reversed after object - > Rule 2 exeption No. 4) time expression 
 Now we have one last option left. Let’s give some importance to that poor man who has bravely been chewing throughout all of this grammar lesson... if he moves to the front, the time has to move to the middle or to the end.
 Der Mann ißt den Apfel am Morgen. 
Der Mann ißt am Morgen den Apfel. 
 The last word in the sentence has the second strongest importance. Which means that the first sentence answers to the question : When does he eat (the apple)? and second sentence to : What does he eat (in the morning) ?

Word order

Die Geschichte des kleinen Mannes - Teil 7

In the German language there are four cases: nominative, genitive, dative and accusative.
 You've already encountered all of these before, but in the following lessons we'll dive deeper into when and how they're used.
 In this lesson we'll start with the nominative case.



 The nominative case is the most common case, and it describes the subject of a sentence.
 We teach all nouns in the nominative case first, and we always teach them together with the definite article to indicate their gender,
 so there shouldn't be many surprises in the table below, except maybe in the right column and the bottom row.


<table class="celled">
 <thead>
 <tr>
 <th></th>
 <th>Definite</th>
 <th>Indefinite</th>
 </tr>
 </thead>
 <tbody>
 <tr>
 <th>Masculine</th>
 <td>Der Mann ist klein. The man is small.</td>
 <td>Ein Mann weint. A man is crying.</td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <th>Feminine</th>
 <td>Die Katze ist schön. The cat is beautiful.</td>
 <td>Eine Katze spielt. A cat is playing.</td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <th>Neuter</th>
 <td>Das Auto ist groß. The car is big.</td>
 <td>Ein Auto fährt. A car is driving.</td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <th>Plural</th>
 <td>Die Autos sind groß. The cars are big.</td>
 <td>-</td>
 </tr>
 </tbody>
</table>


 Note that in the nominative case, the feminine indefinite article is eine instead of ein,
 and also note that the plural definite article is die, regardless of the gender of the noun.

The nominative case

In the German language there are four cases: nominative, genitive, dative and accusative.
 In this lesson we'll go deeper into the genitive case.



 The genitive case describes the possessor of something else in the sentence.


<table class="celled">
 <thead>
 <tr>
 <th></th>
 <th>Definite</th>
 <th>Indefinite</th>
 </tr>
 </thead>
 <tbody>
 <tr>
 <th>Masculine</th>
 <td>
 die Hand des Mannes the hand of the man 
 der Geschmack des Kaffees the taste of the coffee
 </td>
 <td>
 die Hand eines Mannes the hand of a man 
 der Geschmack eines Kaffees the taste of a coffee
 </td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <th>Feminine</th>
 <td>die Hand der Frau the hand of the woman</td>
 <td>die Hand einer Frau the hand of a woman</td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <th>Neuter</th>
 <td>
 die Hand des Kindes the hand of the child 
 das Leiden des Lebens the suffering of life
 </td>
 <td>
 die Hand eines Kindes the hand of a child 
 das Leiden eines Lebens the suffering of a life
 </td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <th>Plural</th>
 <td>die Hände der Kinder the hands of the children</td>
 <td>-</td>
 </tr>
 </tbody>
</table>


 Note that in the genitive case, the masculine and neuter forms behave the same,
 and the plural form behaves the same as the feminine form.



 In the genitive case, masculine and neuter nouns receive -es at the end,
 if they consist of a single syllable and don't end in an -e.
 Masculine and neuter nouns consisting of multiple syllables, or ending in an -e, only receive an -s at the end.



 For the feminine and the plural forms, the noun is the same as in the nominative form.

The genitive case

möchten - dürfen - müssen - sollen - wollen

Let's count

Die Geschichte des kleinen Mannes -Teil 8

How much?

Die Geschichte des kleinen Mannes - Teil 9

Die Geschichte des kleinen Mannes -Teil 10

In the German language there are four cases: nominative, genitive, dative and accusative.
 In this lesson we'll go deeper into the accusative case.



 The accusative case is used for the direct object in a sentence.
 The direct object is "acted upon" by the subject of the sentence.
 For example in the sentence Thomas eats a banana,
 the subject is Thomas and the direct object is a banana.



 Luckily, the form of the accusative case is much simpler than the genetive case.
 As you can see in the table below, only the masculine form differs from the nominative case.


<table class="celled">
 <thead>
 <tr>
 <th></th>
 <th>Definite</th>
 <th>Indefinite</th>
 </tr>
 </thead>
 <tbody>
 <tr>
 <th>Masculine</th>
 <td>Die Frau ißt den Apfel. The woman eats the apple.</td>
 <td>Die Frau ißt einen Apfel. The woman eats an apple.
 </td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <th>Feminine</th>
 <td>Der Mann ißt die Banane. The man eats the banana.</td>
 <td>Der Mann ißt eine Banane. The man eats a banana.</td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <th>Neuter</th>
 <td>Der Hund beißt das Kind. The dog bites the child.</td>
 <td>Der Hund beißt ein Kind. The dog bites a child.</td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <th>Plural</th>
 <td>Die Frau ißt die Äpfel. The woman eats the apples.</td>
 <td>-</td>
 </tr>
 </tbody>
</table>

The accusative case

In the German language there are four cases: nominative, genitive, dative and accusative.
 In this lesson we'll go deeper into the dative case.



 The dative case is used for the indirect object in a sentence.
 The indirect object is often the receiver of something in the sentence.
 For example in the sentence Thomas gives chocolate to the woman,
 the subject is Thomas, the direct object is chocolate, and the indirect object is the woman.



 Below you can see how the dative case is used for the different genders and the plural.


<table class="celled">
 <thead>
 <tr>
 <th></th>
 <th>Definite</th>
 <th>Indefinite</th>
 </tr>
 </thead>
 <tbody>
 <tr>
 <th>Masculine</th>
 <td>Sarah gibt dem Mann ein Geschenk. Sara gives the man a gift.</td>
 <td>Sarah gibt einem Mann ein Geschenk. Sara gives a man a gift.</td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <th>Feminine</th>
 <td>Thomas gibt der Frau Schokolade. Thomas gives the woman chocolate.</td>
 <td>Thomas gibt einer Frau Schokolade. Thomas gives a woman chocolate.</td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <th>Neuter</th>
 <td>Sarah gibt dem Kind ein Spielzeug. Sara gives the child a toy.</td>
 <td>Sarah gibt einem Kind ein Spielzeug. Sara gives a child a toy.</td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <th>Plural</th>
 <td>Thomas gibt den Frauen Schokolade. Thomas gives the women chocolate.</td>
 <td>-</td>
 </tr>
 </tbody>
</table>

The dative case

As you might have noticed by now, Germans are not only fond of story telling an story reading but also games and board games are deeply rooted into our family life. 


	Here I propose you a game which we used to play when we were young:


	Person 1 starts describing an object giving more details at each round and Person 2 tries to guess the object as quickly as possible. The game is called:


	Ich sehe was, was du nicht siehst und das ist... 

We can't play it exactly the same way here. So what we'll do is: I'll give you a list of possible objects and at each round you will have to eliminate the most unlikely of them. Are you ready ?

Question	Answer
the meat	das Fleisch
the soup	die Suppe
the noodle	die Nudel
(the) noodles	(die) Nudeln Let me mention that for plural food you mostly do not need the article. Ich esse Nudeln. (I eat noodles.) Ich esse die Nudeln. (occurs in sentences about specific noodles: I eat the noodles, we've been talking about earlier; I eat the noodles which are standing on the table; I eat the noodles and you eat the rice....)
the rice	der Reis
the potato	die Kartoffel
the tomato	die Tomate
the onion	die Zwiebel
the milk	die Milch
the tea	der Tee
the herbs	die Kräuter
the juice	der Saft
the apple	der Apfel
the orange	die Orange
the orange	die Apfelsine

German 17 - Essen (food)

Contributors