Learn Hardcore German: Die Grammatik auf dieser Lernkarte ist nichts Leichtes, doch mit Übung wird sie normal. - The grammar on this study card is nothing easy, but with practice it becomes normal.

ist nichts Leichtes literally: “is nothing easy / is not an easy thing”.
You’re treating “something easy” as a thing, and saying: This grammar is no easy matter.
ist nicht leicht: “is not easy”.
You’re just negating the adjective leicht as a property of the grammar.

nichts Leichtes sounds a bit more idiomatic and expressive here, highlighting that this grammar point is a kind of challenge or “tough nut,” rather than just calmly describing it as “not easy.”

Why is Leichtes capitalized and why does it end in -es?

Leichtes is capitalized because it’s an adjective being used like a noun (a nominalized adjective). It means something like “an easy thing”.

The -es ending comes from declension:

after words like nichts, etwas, viel, wenig, a following adjective that stands for a neuter singular noun usually gets -es in the nominative/accusative:
- etwas Neues
- nichts Gutes
- viel Interessantes

So:

Leicht- (the adjective stem)
- -es (neuter ending after nichts)
capitalized (because it stands for a noun: “an easy thing”)

Spelling note: in modern German, writing nichts Leichtes (capital L) is the safe, standard option; some style guides also accept lower-case here, but capitalizing is what you’ll normally be taught.

What exactly is nichts doing here grammatically?

Here nichts is an indefinite pronoun, not just the negation word nicht.

As a pronoun, nichts = “nothing”.
The phrase nichts Leichtes = “nothing (that is) easy / no easy thing”.

So in ist nichts Leichtes, the predicate noun phrase is nichts Leichtes (“nothing easy”), parallel to sentences like:

Das ist nichts Besonderes. – “That’s nothing special.”
Die Aufgabe ist nichts Schwieriges. – “The exercise is nothing difficult.”

If you said ist nicht leicht, nicht would directly negate the adjective leicht, instead of being a pronoun.

Could you replace nichts Leichtes with nichts Einfaches or another adjective?

Yes, structurally you can:

…ist nichts Leichtes.
…ist nichts Einfaches.
…ist nichts Schwieriges. (nothing difficult)
…ist nichts Besonderes. (nothing special)

The pattern nichts + [adjective in -es] is very productive.

The nuance changes with the adjective:

leicht = “easy/light” (slightly more neutral)
einfach = “simple/easy” (often a bit more colloquial or concrete)

Here, nichts Leichtes and nichts Einfaches would both be natural, with only a small stylistic difference.

What case is dieser in auf dieser Lernkarte, and why?

dieser is dative feminine singular.

Lernkarte is feminine: die Lernkarte.
The preposition auf is a “two-way preposition” (Wechselpräposition). With location (answering wo? = “where?”), it takes the dative case.
So we have:
- nominative: diese Lernkarte
- dative: auf dieser Lernkarte

The full phrase auf dieser Lernkarte therefore uses dieser in dative feminine singular to agree with Lernkarte.

Why is it auf dieser Lernkarte and not in dieser Lernkarte?

German uses auf for text or content that is physically on a flat surface (paper, cards, screens):

auf der Tafel – on the blackboard
auf der Seite – on the page
auf der Karte / auf der Lernkarte – on the (learning) card

in dieser Lernkarte would sound odd, as if the grammar were inside the card like an object in a box. For written/printed content, auf is the natural preposition.

Why is Lernkarte feminine (die Lernkarte)?

There’s no logical rule you can derive from English; grammatical gender in German is mostly lexical.

Karte (“card, map”) is feminine: die Karte.
Lernkarte is a compound: Lern- (learning) + Karte (card).
In German compounds, the last part decides the gender.

So Lernkarte inherits its gender from Karte and is therefore feminine:
die Lernkarte, dieser Lernkarte, einer Lernkarte, etc.

Why does mit Übung have no article?

mit always takes the dative, so formally it’s “(with) practice” in the dative: mit Übung.

The reason there’s no article is that Übung is used as an abstract, mass noun here:

mit Übung = “with practice (in general)”
mit etwas Übung = “with a bit of practice”
mit der Übung = “with the practice (that we are doing / that we mentioned before)”

When you talk about practice in a general, non-countable way (“practice makes perfect”), German often uses the bare noun without an article.

How does wird sie normal work grammatically?

The structure is werden + adjective = “to become [adjective]”.

wird – 3rd person singular of werden
sie – the subject pronoun, referring back to die Grammatik
normal – predicate adjective

So wird sie normal = “it (the grammar) becomes normal / starts to feel normal”.

Word order in the clause:

mit Übung – preposed adverbial phrase (counts as position 1)
wird – finite verb (must be in position 2)
sie – subject
normal – predicate adjective at the end of the middle field

Hence: …doch mit Übung wird sie normal.

Why is the pronoun sie used and not es?

Because pronouns in German usually follow grammatical gender, not logical or natural gender.

Grammatik is a feminine noun: die Grammatik.
The matching 3rd person singular pronoun is sie.

So:

Die Grammatik … Sie ist schwierig.
not: Es ist schwierig. (that would normally refer to a neuter noun)

Even though in English we say it for “grammar”, German must use sie to agree with die Grammatik.

What does doch mean here, and how is it different from aber?

Here doch is a coordinating conjunction meaning roughly “but / yet / however”.

…ist nichts Leichtes, doch mit Übung wird sie normal.

You could replace it with aber without changing the grammar:

…ist nichts Leichtes, aber mit Übung wird sie normal.

Nuance:

aber is the neutral “but”.
doch can sound a bit more like “yet / still / however”, often slightly more concessive or emphasizing contrast with what one might expect.

In this sentence, both are fine; doch just adds a tiny bit of “nevertheless” flavor.

Could you change the word order, for example to …doch sie wird mit Übung normal?

Yes, that’s also grammatically correct:

…doch mit Übung wird sie normal.
…doch sie wird mit Übung normal.

Both are fine. The difference is emphasis:

mit Übung wird sie normal puts mit Übung first → highlights “with practice” as the important condition.
sie wird mit Übung normal starts with sie → keeps the subject in focus and makes the sentence a bit more neutral in rhythm.

You cannot move wird away from the second position in its clause, though. It must remain the second element in the clause it belongs to.