German For Dummies, (with CD)

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A few final tips will make it easy to remember all the German case rules. Ask yourself the following questions to figure out which case to use:

German For Dummies : Paulina Christensen, Anne Fox, Wendy German For Dummies : Paulina Christensen, Anne Fox, Wendy

The same is true for the indefinite articles. Just as English has two indefinite articles — a and an — that you use with singular nouns, German also has two indefinite articles (in the nominative case): ein for masculine- and neuter-gender words and eine for feminine-gender words.

The German language

Still, I liked Jones’s jumbo jet analogy. Although I haven’t learned to fly one, it made me think about learning to drive, which I did manage and which went from brain-meltingly difficult to second nature in roughly half a year. Searching for another excuse, I began to worry that my affliction was a condition of being brought up as a monolingual Brit, so I met up with Matthew Youlden, a Mancunian who, like his twin brother, Michael, can speak 20 languages. The Youlden brothers are polyglots who were recently tasked by a German TV show to learn Danish in one week – teaching the TV presenter Claire Oelkers the language as they learned. The following words are spelled the same way and have the same meaning in German and in English. The only differences are the pronunciation, as shown in parentheses, as well as the fact that in German, nouns are always capitalized. In addition, German nouns have one of three genders, as seen on this list by the words der (masculine), die (feminine), and das (neuter) in front of each noun. See Chapter 2 for details on what gender is all about and go to Chapter 3 for information on the pronunciation key for each word presented in this book. In a few instances, the German and English pronunciation for the word is the same, so you’ll see the English word in the pronunciation (followed by the notation as in English.) Also note that, because each language has its own ways of expressing ideas, the English translations that we provide for the German terms may not be exactly literal. We want you to know the essence of what’s being said, not just the meanings of single words. For example, the phrase Es geht (ês geyt) can be translated literally as It goes, but the phrase is actually the equivalent of So, so, or Okay, which is what you see as the translation. Foolish Assumptions Many words, like the ones shown in Table 1-1, are spelled almost the same in German as in English and have the same meaning. Table 1-1 also shows you something about German spelling conventions, which include: Another similarity with English is that the German indefinite article ein/eine doesn’t have a plural form. Depending on how you’re describing something plural, you may or may not need to use the plural definite article. Consider the following generalized statement, which requires no article: In Zermatt sind Autos verboten. ( Cars are forbidden in Zermatt [Switzerland].)

BBC - Learn German with free online lessons

The dative case describes the indirect object of a sentence in German and English and answers the question, “ wem?” (whom), or “was?” (what). This is something that the language-learning app Babbel is keen to overcome. “What we provide is a safe space for practice,” said Christian Hillemeyer, the company’s communications director, when I cycled over to its headquarters in Berlin’s Mitte district. “Users control the rate at which they learn, test their pronunciation and go into the world when they feel they have the confidence.” It’s true that cognitive decline begins to set in around the late twenties or early thirties,” Jones said. “In terms of efficiency, however, you’re unlikely to see any noticeable effect until the late fifties. The research seems to show that motivation and learning strategies can well compensate for any cognitive decline.” As you probably noticed, only the masculine articles change in the accusative case.Let's look at a few simple examples: Begin with the basics and gradually build up your understanding through practice and exposure. And make sure you're listening to or reading lots of German to expose yourself to the different cases in context.Find your main goal, and you’ll discover that German language learning isn’t as hard as you previously thought. Studying with a professional tutor who guides you through the learning process makes language learning even easier. Specify your goal as much as you can and don’t forget to set an exact time frame. Here’s a list of reasons that could be your reasons WHY: The genitive case indicates possession and answers the question “wessen?”or “whose?” You'll see the genitive case most often in written German. In spoken German, you'll hear von (from)and the dative case instead of the genitive case. Die (Eine) Frau lebt in Deutschland. (The (a) woman lives in Germany.) In this example, Die Frau, or the woman, is the subject of the sentence.

German For Dummies, (with CD) : Christensen, Paulina, Fox German For Dummies, (with CD) : Christensen, Paulina, Fox

In this article you'll learn what the different cases are and when to use them. By the end of this post, you'll have a clear understanding of the German case system. German All-in-One For Dummies conveniently combines titles from the German Dummies library into one handy guide that covers all of the bases of the German language. For those looking to master fluency in this popular language, this book and CD combo are an efficient and logical choice. But in spoken German,Germans sometimes use the dative case with these genitive prepositions. Overview Of The German Cases

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Die Frau liebt den Mann . (The woman loves the man). Den Mann is the direct object in this sentence and takes the accusative case. Die Frau is the subject and takes the nominative case.