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STRENGTHEN
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Lesson 1 of Lesson 2 of Lesson 3 of
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Mann, Frau, du, bist, Brot, er, sie,
Junge, ich, Kind, es, ist, trinkt,
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Tips and notes
WELCOME TO GERMAN :)
Welcome to the German course! We will provide you with tips
and notes throughout the course. However, be aware that these
are optional. Only read them when you fell stuck, or when you
are interested in the details. You can use the course without
them.
Often, it's best to just dive into the practice. See how it goes!
You can always revisit the Notes section later on.
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 words are the nouns in a sentence.
GERMAN GENDERS ARE STRANGE
Nouns in German are either feminine, masculine or neuter. For
example, Frau (woman) is feminine, Mann (man) is masculine,
and Kind (child) is neuter.
While some nouns (Frau, Mann, …) have natural gender like in
English (a woman is female, a man is male), most nouns have
grammatical gender (depends on word ending, or seemingly
random).
For example, Mädchen (girl) is neuter, because all words ending
in -chen are neuter. Wasser (water) is neuter, but Cola is
feminine, and Saft (juice) is masculine.
It is important to learn every noun along with its gender
because parts of German sentences change depending on the
gender of their nouns.
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For now, just remember that the indefinite article (a/an) ein is
used for masculine and neuter nouns, and eine is used for
feminine nouns. Stay with us to find out how "cases" will later
modify these.
gender indefinite article
masculine ein Mann
neuter ein Mädchen
feminine eine Frau
VERB CONJUGATIONS
Conjugating regular verbs
Verb conjugation in German is more complex than in English. To
conjugate a regular verb in the present tense, identify the stem
of the verb and add the ending corresponding to any of the
grammatical persons, which you can simply memorize. For now,
here are the singular forms:
Example: 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
Conjugations of the verb sein (to be)
Like in English, sein (to be) is completely irregular, and its
conjugations simply need to be memorized. Again, you will learn
the plural forms soon.
English German
I am ich bin
you (singular informal) are du bist
he/she/it is er/sie/es ist
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.
no umlaut umlaut
a ä
o ö
u ü
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An umlaut change may change the meaning. That's why it's
important not to ignore those little dots.
NO CONTINUOUS ASPECT
In German, there's no continuous aspect. 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.
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