Day 4: German pronouns and introduction to verb conjugation.

After we got to know some general characteristics of the German words, I think today we should learn the (subject) pronouns. Why? Sentences can’t be formed with only nouns. You can’t say ”My friend bought pizza and my friend invited me to a movie” because you’ll sound like a robot, right? Pronouns will replace nouns after the first time they’re mentioned and that is why they are so important.

In German, the subject pronouns are:

ich - I

du - you (informal, singular)

er - he

sie - she

es - it

wir - we

Ihr - you (informal, plural)

Sie – you (formal, singular)

sie - they

You might have already noticed how “sie” means “she”, “they” and “You” (when with a capital S). Yes. That’s correct! But I’ll give you two good reasons why you shouldn’t let that bother you:

1. 99,9% of the time you can know what the pronoun refers to from the context.

2. (And I’m going to cite this reason frequently…when needed): German speakers aren’t bothered by that! Every time something bothers me to a point I choke when I think about it, I remember this; If native speakers aren’t bothered by it, I shouldn’t be, I should find some ‘inner peace’ to be okay with it...getting really philosophical there, huh?

Okay, so now we're done with the pronouns, let's get to the examples:

- Ich lerne Deutsch - I am learning German.

- Du bist nett - You are nice/kind.

- Er isst einen Apfel - He eats an apple.

- Sie kann zwei Sprachen sprechen - She can speak in two languages.

- Es ist eine gute Idee - It is a good idea.

- Wir sind Brüder - We are brothers.

- Ihr wollt nach Deutschland fahren - You guys want to go to Germany.

- Sie singen sehr gut - They sing very well.

Now as you know from the previous lesson, German verbs end in -en or -n. This form of the verb that ends that way is the form that you will see in the dictionary - an infinitive. If you want to use the verb in a sentence you will need to change its ending according to the personal pronoun you are using.

To present it in a more meaningful way I will use the verb ”to do” in German, ”machen” and I'll conjugate it for every person:

ich mache - I do

du machst - you do

er macht - he does

sie macht - she does

es macht - it does

wir machen - we do

ihr macht - you guys do

sie machen - they do

As you can see, some endings get repeated, so it is not so scary and you will certainly get used to it soon. One good thing is that you can apply those endings to almost any verb you see. Just cut off the ending -en and add one of the endings that I showed you. The bad thing is, that some verbs might be irregular which means that their endings are little different, but don't be bothered by them. For now use these endings. Here are some verbs to practice on:

arbeiten - to work

atmen - to breathe

baden - to bathe

bauen - to build

Did you get it right? Great! Now we can progress further.

See you next time! Tschüss!

day3: Meeting the German words: 7 things you need to know about the words in German.

    You now know how to greet people in German and use some basic phrases and conversation starters. I thought it would be a good idea to talk generally about words in German. How to recognize them, how they’re used and more. Let’s get started:

1 - In German, all the nouns are ALWAYS capitalized, just like proper nouns in English or the pronoun “I”.

And this would be obvious if you just read any text in German; we already had:

Guten Tag - Tag is ‘day’ (never ‘tag’ with a small ‘t’.)

Guten Abend - Abend is ‘evening (never ‘abend’.)

...and so on.

2 - German verbs 90% of the time end in –en and  the rest 10% of the time end in -rn or -ln.
- All German verbs end in -n.

Gehen - To go.

Sehen - To see.

Essen - To eat.

Trinken - To drink.

Sprechen - To speak.

Schlafen - To sleep.

But note:

Bessern - To become better/ to improve.

Bemängeln - To criticize.

Ändern - To change.

3 - Like in English, German adjectives come before the noun;
 
- ein netter Mann - a nice man.
- eine schöne Frau - a big house.
- eine lustige Geschichte - a funny story.

4 - German nouns have three genders; masculine, feminine & neuter.
 
Masculine nouns have the definite article „”Der”.
- Der Mann = the man.
Feminine nouns have the definite article „”Die”.
- Die Frau = the woman.
Neuter nouns have the definite article „”Das”.
- Das Haus = the house.
#The genders are not always what you expect them to be:
- Das Hund = the dog. (Neuter.)
- Das mädchen = the girl. (neuter.)
    We’ll have a whole article about genders in the future. So, we’ll have enough by knowing these rules.

5 - German adverbs are always the same as the adjectives they are derived from:
 
In other words, ”different” & "differently" are the same word "unterschiedlich".
”Langsam” means both "slow" & "slowly".

6 - German auxiliary verbs don’t start questions like in English: 
- liebst du mich? (do you love me?) (literally, "love you me?")
- gehen wir heute Abend aus? (are we going out tonight?)
(lit, go we out tonight?)
& so on.
We’ll also have an article dedicated  to questions in German.

  7 - German has a very high ability to make compound nouns. Like English;
 
- Textbook, notebook, handbrake, bodyguard, etc.
but they’re more common than in English:
- Tagebuch = diary. (Tage "days" + buch "book".).
- Notizbuch = notebook.
- Ohrring = earring.

Sometimes, they're funny: 
- Handschuh = glove. (Hand "hand" + Schuh "shoe".).

Also, sometimes, it’s kind of scary:
wordpress.com      
  but not really, don’t let that intimidate you. It’s just a habit that the Germans have, which is, instead of separating words, they write them all together with no space. The word above is:
 "Gemüse (vegetables) + Produktions (production) +Gesellschaft (association/society)"
so it's translated to: "Association of vegetables growers".
 Such long words are not unusual to be found in most German streets, papers, books, etc. Let's take a look at other examples.

Flickr: kongharald
Translation: "follow walking speed".
Schritt (step/pace) + Geschwindigkeit (speed) + beachten (to mind/ to notice/ to follow/ to observe).

    
         dartmouth.edu  
Translation: Election notice.

  Crazy,isn't it? let's dissect this;
    - Abstimmung (vote/poll/elections) + bekanntmachung (notice/announcement).
   "Bekanntmachung" itself is "bekannt (known) + machung (making)"
so literally, it's "making known = announcement".
Fun! right?

             So, this should clear up some things for us to move forward. I hope none will have any nightmares of long German words chasing him or something...They’re not so scary after all, are they?
Till tomorrow, Tschüss!

-Go back to day 2: Let's say "Hallo"!

-New with us? Go back to day 0: Introduction to the journey.