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.