If you want to learn German by yourself or if you’re looking for something to read along the way… this might be it. Here you can find lectures about all that is important about the German language as a system. We will not do the usual “How to introduce oneself” or “How.to.order.things.in .A.rest.au.rant” here but we will eventually cover all the grammar. So… reading this won’t make you talk but I am sure it will help you understand how German works.
I decided to not structure the stuff in a linear way so the sections are pretty much independent of one another. That means more freedom for you… yeahhh. Ok…. if you are a complete beginner you should start with the basics…I mean… it makes little sense to read about time as long as you don’t know the past tense. But as soon as you’re done with the the essentials you can read whatever section whenever you feel like finding out more about the question… because it is then that you have a good chance of retaining it :).
So… go ahead, read what you’re interested in and leave the rest for another time. I hope you enjoy it.
The Essentials – Learn the basis German personal pronouns like I, you, we and so on… _____________ – Learn how to conjugate about 98 percent of all German verbs in present tense – well… the other 4 … uh I mean 2% _____________ – an introduction to the German past tense – learn how to build the ge-form and when to use haben or sein Past Tense 3 – yet to come _____________ – learn how to ask questions in German… part one deals with all the question words like was, wo, wer, wie, wann and so on… in detail :) – learn how to ask so called open questions … those without question words. Questions 3 – yet to come Cases and such – find out what cases are, why they exist, how they are in other languages and what cases and prepositions have in common (except that they suck) – find out about the two German cases no one cares about. The bland nominative and the shunned Genitive. But who knows… maybe there is more to them after all?? – mich, mir… accusative, dative…find out what’s up with those once and for all. – you want to get the endings right? Why not start today!? with this convenient starter kit you can get about 40% correct … and you don’t even have to bother about gender or case. – The second step to mastery of the German adjective declension will et you another 40% there with not so much of an effort. 3 – This one fixes the few mistakes that are still there… if you have 2 minutes to think, that is :). Seriously, it’s worth reading just to know what’s going on, but getting it right while speaking… no explanation can do that. Just talk and read and it’ll come :)
Structure – A broad look at what a sentence consists of leads us to the Box Model (©me). The box model is really helpful at understanding and breaking down even the most difficult German sentences. It will be theory and a lot of English but it is definitely worth the read. – find out when to use which and settle the matter once and for all – damit, davor, davon, daran… what are they, what do they do and… whyyyyyyy – scary sounding, not the most useful in daily conversation and yet all over in German. You can be fluent without knowing about this. But it gives you a great inside into the Lego-like character of German and helps you understand German sentence structure a bit better… because actually, you don’t have to move that much :) Grammar Jargon – Conjugation is one of the things you are confronted with in any language class… unless you learn Swedish. It is pretty simple and the term might sound familiar to you but maybe you can’t quite put your finger on what exactlyit means. So if you need an update on that… check out the link above. – The term is thrown around a lot in language courses and you need them everyday in German and English… and they cause a lot of trouble for language learners. Misuse of prepositions is one of the biggest source of error in German and it is by far the most confusing… get a case wrong … well ok. But get a preposition wrong and it might alter meaning. This article won’t solve all these problems but it will explain, what prepositions do, how to recognize them, compare German and English ones and answers the question whether prepositions are necessary at all :). – This opinionated post… well.. rant takes a look at the terms transitive and intransitive. We’ll see what it means and if it is really necessary to use these words… – Textbooks, teachers, Ted Cruz… everyone uses the term without even asking whether people actually understand what it is. Here’s a thorough analysis of adverbs in general as well as a look atwhat’s special about them in German. This intense post tries to figure out just what are conjunctions. And we’ll go much deeper than the usual book definition. Because conjunctions have a lot in common with another bunch of words. And we’ll see what’s up with these things in German, which is kind of really interesting because it touches the secret why the verb moves. (Spoiler: they stink) Time – an insightful (or so I hope) introduction about what ways there are to give time information – Learn how to say the time of day – Learn all those “names” for time like today, tomorrow, last week and how to use them – Learn all those vague words like soon, later, at some point and so on… part one looks into the future – And more…. vague words for the past… like just now, recently, a while ago, earlier and so on – Time preposition and how to use them… so things like in, since, for Time 5.2 – the rest of the prepositions… shame on me, but this is still pending – learn how tocoordinate actions in time… we’ll look at words like before, after, while and others… it is long but I swear it is worth it
Last but not least ones I haven’t categorized yet:
- This post takes a look at what “reflexive” actually means. Then we’ll take a look at English and compare that to how it works on German and do away with some myths they teach in language class sometimes. After reading this, you see German reflexive verbs in a different light… they aren’t that hard actually.
Oh and what’s up with the colors? They should give you an orientation what the article is like…
: Rated G. This is basic stuff that you can use and apply even as a complete beginner without knowledge about cases or sentence structure
: This is the core of German grammar and structure. Having read the green stuff you know enough to speak proper German (of course you need to practice)
: These articles are more theoretical look at German… no… not the boring theoretical, the insightful one… so those are not about “How do I do this and that” but more about the “Whhhhyyyyyy???” … they give you useful background and organize things a little.
: Rated Nerd. This is advanced stuff. You can speak German fluently without any of this but you will need it for writing and if you want to pass language tests higher than the B2.
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