Chapter 1, Basics

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Verb

Tips and notes

Capitalizing nouns

In German, all nouns are capitalized. For example, "my name" is "mein Name," and "the apple" is "der Apfel." This helps you identify which are the nouns in a sentence.

Three grammatical genders, three types of nouns

Nouns in German are either feminine, masculine or neuter. For example, "Frau" (woman) is feminine, "Mann" (man) is masculine, and "Kind" (child) is neuter. The grammatical gender may not match the biological gender: "Mädchen" (girl) is a neuter noun.

It is very important to learn every noun along with its gender because parts of German sentences change depending on the gender of their nouns.

Generally speaking, the definite article "die" (the) and the indefinite article "eine" (a/an) are used for feminine nouns, "der" and "ein" for masculine nouns, and "das" and "ein" for neuter nouns. For example, it is "die Frau," "der Mann," and "das Kind." However, later you will see that this changes depending on something called the "case of the noun."

masculine neuter feminine indefinite (a/an) ein Mann ein Mädchen eine Frau definite (the) der Mann das Mädchen die Frau Conjugations of the verb sein (to be)

A few verbs like "sein" (to be) are completely irregular, and their conjugations simply need to be memorized:

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

Verb conjugation in German is more challenging than in English. To conjugate a regular verb in the present tense, identify the invariant stem of the verb and add the ending corresponding to any of the grammatical persons, which you can simply memorize:

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 you (formal) -en Sie trinken they -en sie trinken Notice that the 1st and the 3rd person plural have the same ending as "you (formal)."

Umlauts

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.

An umlaut can sometimes indicate the plural of a word. For example, the plural of "Mutter" (mother) is "Mütter." It might even change the meaning of a word entirely. That's why it's very important not to ignore those little dots.

No continuous aspect

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!

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.

Writing notes

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