5 top tips for German grammar

#1

The gender of the names and the accompanying articles

Nouns are the largest word class in German because the words can be divided into several subcategories. One of these is based on the gender of the nouns - in particular, male (m), female (f) and neuter (n).

It is important to know the gender of German nouns because it determines which article to use. German uses both definite (der/die/das) and indefinite (ein/eine) articles.

Definite article:

• Der Hund – der Hund ist schwarz (The dog is black)
• Die Katze – Die Katze ist rot (The cat is red)

• Ein Hund – Ein Hund macht viel Freude (A dog brings lots of joy)
• Eine Katze – Eine Katze kann Mäuse jagen (A cat can hunt mice)

#2

What is case?

One of the biggest challenges of the German language is case. We are often not used to this way of inflecting words, but it is extremely important to understand it when writing texts in German.

The case is inflected according to different clauses to indicate their role in the sentence, such as subject, object, etc.

German has four cases:

• Nominative (subject, relative clause to subject)
• Accusative (direct object, relative clause to direct object)
• Genitive (possessive case)
• Dative (indirect object)

To write grammatically correct German using the right case, you need to know the function of the clause as well as the gender of the nouns, which we looked at earlier in the article.

For example:

“The woman eats an apple.”

“Woman” is the subject of the sentence and must therefore be inflected in nominative – the word is also singular and female (f) and the definite article, “Die”, indicates that this is a particular woman.

“Apple” is the object and is thus accusative – here, we have a word in singular, which is male (m) and the indefinite article, “einen”, indicates that it is a random apple.

Therefore, the translated sentence looks like this:

#3

Word order - this is how you know where to place the verbs

It is important to use the correct word order when writing texts in other languages.

Imagine that you are writing a phrase in German, and want to know where to place your verbs. When it comes to the main clauses (the primary action in the sentence), remember that there can only be one verb close to whatever or whoever does something (called the subject).

The second verb should be placed at the end. This forms a kind of ”framework” for your sentence with the two verbs.

For example, if you say: "Leider werden wir dieses Jahr nicht reisen." ["Unfortunately we will not travel this year."]

Here, the verb ”werden” is placed immediately before the subject ”wir”, and then the second verb ”reisen” comes at the end of the sentence.

However, it is different when formulating a subordinate clause (explanation or addition to the main phrase). Here, all verbs must be placed at the end, and the verb that changes according to who does something (the person-inflected verb) is placed right at the very end.

For example, if you say: "Leider werden wir dieses Jahr nicht verreisen, weil wir unser ganzes Geld ausgegeben haben."
[“Unfortunately, we will not travel this year because we have spent all our money.”]

Here, you see that both “ausgegeben” and “haben” are placed at the end of the sentence, where “haben” changes according to who does something.

It’s a bit like building a LEGO house – you need to remember where to put the pieces to make it all fit together!

#4

Nouns have an initial capital letter

It differs from language to language which words should be written with an initial capital letter. We only see this in English for proper names and titles, but in German, all nouns must start with a capital letter.

It is important to remember this grammatical rule, but it can be challenging because it is very different from what you are used to. Therefore, a smart rule of thumb can help when writing in German: Most important = initial capital letter.

Nouns are central to the meaning of sentences, so you can remember that these most important words should also start with a capital letter.

#5

The German alphabet - umlaut and ß

You have probably come across German words that look a bit special. This is because the German alphabet has some distinctive letters, namely ß, and a, o and u with umlaut.

The letter Eszett (ß) is also called ‘Scharf-S’. It is used to ensure the right pronunciation but is, of course, also important in writing.

Eszett is written after a long vocal in, for example, the word “Straße”; you can remember it by saying it out loud to yourself.

When writing in German, you will also encounter words spelled with umlauts with the letters ä, ö and ü (anything else is a foreign word). The two small dots above the letter change the pronunciation, but in some cases, they can also affect the meaning of a word.

Umlaut is used in the following situations:

• To differentiate between singular and plural: “Mutter” means “mother”, while “Mütter” with umlaut over the first vowel means “mothers”.
  
  
• In some cases, verbs in 2nd and 3rd person are written with umlaut. The inflection of “to drive” is an example of this:
  “ich fahre”, “du fährst”, “er/sie/es fährt”.