Introduction(de)

Hallo! German Introduction with tips and notes, only read them when you feel stuck, or when you are interested in the details. (Basics 1 / The / Basics 2 )

German and English are in the same language family? German might seem tricky, but there are also a lot of similarities. Welcome to the German tour! Let’s get started! 🤪

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

Gender is a way to sort all nouns. In German, every noun is either feminine, masculine or neuter, even when they don't refer to people. 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(-a) is feminine, and Saft (juice) is masculine.

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.

Each gender has its own definite article.

Der is used for masculine nouns

Das for neuter

Die for feminine.

• -tion/-ie/-keit/-heit/-schaft/-ium/-ese/-ka/-rai but das Studium, der Chinese

• almost all nouns that end with ‑ung are feminine. Plus, most nouns ending with ‑e are feminine (der Junge is an exception!).

And we called this the nominative case in German.

Stay with us to find out how "cases" will later modify these.

Masculine	Feminine	Neuter
der Mann	die Frau	das Mädchen
dar Junge		das Kind
	die Zeitung	das Buch
	die Milch	das Essen
der Saft	die Cola	das Wasser
		das brot
		das Bild

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

2. The grammatical gender may not match the biological gender: "Mädchen" (girl) is a neuter noun.

There are over 1,000 types of Brot in Germany! If you visit Germany, be sure to go early to a Bäckerei(die Bäckerei) to try some freshly baked bread.

If you order Wasser in a German restaurant, you’ll get a bottle of sparkling or mineral water—and it’s not free! If you want tap water, ask for Leitungswasser, but be prepared to get some odd looks.

Generic vs. specific

German is not Spanish or French

Just like in English, using or dropping the definite article makes the difference between specific and generic.

I like bread = Ich mag Brot (bread in general)

I like the bread = Ich mag das Brot (specific bread)

A good general rule is to use an article when you would use on in English. If there is none in English, don't use one in German.

Verb conjugations

Conjugations of the verb sein

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.

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

If you're new to German, ihr and er may sound confusingly similar, but there is actually a difference. ihr sounds similar to the English word "ear", and er sounds similar to the English word "air" (imagine a British/RP accent).

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), sprechen(to speak),spielen(to play), machen (to make), schreiben (to write),hören(to hear), bezahlen(to play)

kommen(to come),gehen(to go), fallen(to fall) verstehen (to understand),kennen(to know), lernen(to learn),denken(to think), rennen(to run),bringen(to bring),schwimmen(to swim),

brauchen(need), beginnen(to begin/start)

leben(to live), lieben(to love)

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

Conjugating irregular verbs

And an umlaut on top!

Some verbs change an a to an ä in the du and er / sie / es forms!

	schlafen(to sleep)	laufen(to walk)	faren(to drive)	waschen(to wash)	tragen(to wear)
ich	schlafe	laufe	fahre	wasche	trage
du	schläfst	läufst	fährst	wäschst	trägst
er/sie/es	schläft	läuft	fährt	wäscht	trägt
wir	schlafen	laufen	fahren	waschen	tragen
ihr	schlaft	lauft	fahrt	wascht	tragt
sie/Sie	schlafen	laufen	fahren	waschen	tragen

Keep in mind the b disappears in the du and er / sie / es forms of haben.

	lesen(to read)	essen(to eat)	haben(to have)	sehen(to see)	Wollen and mögen
ich	lese	esse	habe	sehe	will, mag
du	liest	isst	hast	siehst	willst,magst
er/sie/es	liest	isst	hat	sieht	will,mag
wir	lesen	essen	haben	sehen	wollen, mögen
ihr	lest	esst	habt	seht	wollt, mögt
sie/Sie	lesen	essen	haben	sehen	wollen, mögen

Some verbs have letters like d or n in the main part, which can make them hard to pronounce when you add on verb endings. To solve this problem, there’s an added e!

	öffnen(to open)	finden(to find)
ich	öffne	finde
du	öffnest	findest
er/sie/es	öffnet	findet
wir	öffnen	finden
ihr	öffnet	findet
sie/Sie	öffnen	finden

No continuous aspect

In German, there's no continuous aspect like French , 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.

What do you like to do?

You can show that you enjoy doing something by adding the word gern after the verb. Don’t like it? Use nicht gern instead!

Ich lerne. I learn.	Ich lerne gern. I like to learn.
Ich lese die Zeitung. I read the newspaper.	Ich lese nicht gern die Zeitung. I don’t like to read the newspaper.

Plurals

In English, making plurals out of singular nouns is typically as straightforward as adding -(e)s at the end of the word. In German, the transformation is more complex.

In some languages (such as French or Spanish), genders are also differentiated in the plural. In German, the plural form does not depend on what gender the singular form is.

Regardless of grammatical gender, all plural nouns take the definite article die. This does not make them feminine. The grammatical gender of a word never changes. Like many other words, die is simply used for multiple purposes.

Just like in English, there's no plural indefinite article.

English	German
women	Frauen
men	Männer
kids	Kinder
boy	Jungen
girl	Mädchen
book	Bücher.

In German, there are many ways to make something plural. You’ll get used to the patterns as you practice! Here are a few of these patterns:

add ‑e	die Schweine
add ‑er	die Eier
add ‑en	die Frauen, die menschen, die Zeutungen
add umlaut	die Vögel

You, you and you

Most languages use different words to address one person, or several people.

In German, when addressing a single person, use du:

• Du bist mein Kind. (You are my child.)

If you are talking to more than one person, use ihr:

• Ihr seid meine Kinder. (You are my children.)

Some English speakers would use "y'all" or "you guys" for this plural form of "you".

Note that these only work for people you are familiar with (friends, family, …).

FAQ

In the German language, why is juice masculine and cola feminine?

There usually is no satisfying answer to the question why a noun has a certain gender. One simply cannot give an inherently logical reason why a spoon should be masculine and a fork feminine.

When foreign words are adopted, they must be assigned a gender. There are several, often conflicting, criteria for which gender a foreign word should have: existing categories, suggestive word endings, the gender of the word in the original language, etc.

Let's take Baguette, for instance. In French this is a feminine noun, and it ends with an e, both of which suggest that the word should be feminine in German, too. Nevertheless, it's das Baguette, probably because many other words in the bread category are neuter as well.

Now let's look at Cola. English doesn't have genders anymore, so that doesn't apply here. The ending a certainly makes it look feminine. In addition, the category fizzy drinks has a couple of feminine nouns (e. g. die Limonade/Limo). So die Cola sounds natural to many Germans.

from https://www.quora.com/In-the-German-language-why-is-juice-masculine-and-cola-feminine @Michael Baumgartner