1. Easy Learning German Grammar Pdf

German An Essential Grammar German: An Essential Grammar is a practical reference guide to the core structures and features of modern German. Presenting a fresh and accessible description of the language, this engaging grammar uses clear, jargon-free explanations and sets out the complexities of German in short, readable sections. German Course for Beginners. Learn German - online, simple, independently and for free! 10 tables build up an overview of basic German grammar. Basic verb forms and an introduction to German syntax are presented in a simple and understandable way. This German course was compiled with total beginners in mind.

We all know the stereotypes of the German language. It sounds harsh and guttural. Its grammar is needlessly complicated. It has ridiculously long words. I was going to start this post with an encouraging and reassuring message that, but I think you already know that. Of course, every language has elements that seem strange, difficult or tricky——when, and German is no exception.

But I’m guessing that since you’re reading a post about German, you’ve already accepted these realities, and now you’re ready to. I know what they say about making assumptions, but the other main assumption I’ll make today is that you’re at least a bit familiar with English grammar. I’m making that assumption because you’re reading this in English, and if it’s your native language, you probably had some lessons about the difference between a noun and a pronoun, even if it was years ago in junior high school. Alternately, if English isn’t your native language, then that’s maybe even better for our purposes today! That means that you had to learn how to speak English from your native language, and you probably have even more understanding about what it takes to learn a new language.

Easy Learning German Grammar Pdf

How This Post Works You might think the idea of “basic German grammar” is an oxymoron. After all, we’re talking about a culture that revels in explaining jokes and that came up with the expressions “” and “” But fear not, dear reader, since we’re going to do this in a slightly non-Germanic way. The idea here is not to detail one part of speech at a time (“This is a noun. A noun is a person, place or thing” and so on). That would be a bit boring and dry. Instead, we’re going to look at the similarities and differences between German and English, especially in terms of grammar. There are other considerations when it comes to learning German vocabulary, as well as German pronunciation, so we won’t focus much on those aspects of the language today.

Near the end, we’ll examine a few general tips that you can use in your approach to learning more about German and German grammar. In that section, we’ll do a quick review of what you should focus on if you’re just starting to learn German, so that you can save yourself some trouble and headaches later on in your learning process. The Good News About German Grammar I know that some people believe in getting the bad news out of the way first, but I want to make sure you keep reading and give German grammar a fair chance, so I want to focus on the positive stuff first. So let’s look at German grammar elements that are similar to English, as well as a few aspects that are even easier than English! German grammar elements that are similar to English ones. Word order In many cases, German uses the Subject-Verb-Object word order, like English does. There are some exceptions to this order in both languages, but it’s still much more familiar than if you were to try to learn a language with a completely different word order, like.

Irregular verbs Uh-oh, “irregular.” That doesn’t sound too good, does it? Well, in this case, it’s actually a good sign, since English and German both have a lot of irregular verbs.

In have an “-ed” ending in the simple past and past participle forms. Words like “cook/cooked/cooked” and “push/pushed/pushed” are regular verbs. An follows a different pattern in the past forms.

Many of the most common verbs in English are irregular, including “eat/ate/eaten” and “see/saw/seen.” In German, there’s a similar idea with weak and strong verbs. We can imagine that “weak” verbs aren’t strong enough to change the default past forms, so they get a “-t” suffix in the simple past form (like an “-ed” in English) and also a “ge-” prefix in the participle form. Some are machen/macht-/gemacht (for the verb “make” or “do”) and sagen/sagt-/gesagt (for the verb “say”). The German “strong” verbs, on the other hand, are irregular, since they change the roots of the verbs quite a bit in the past forms. Include kommen/kam-/gekommen (for the verb “come”) and gehen/ging-/gegangen (for the verb “go”). I know what you’re thinking: “So what’s the point?

Are you trying to say that verbs in both languages are just confusing?” Well, sort of, but they’re often confusing in the same way. Because English and German share common linguistic ancestors,. So if a verb is weak in German, it tends to be regular in English, and if it’s strong in German, it’s often irregular in English. That’s not to say that there are no exceptions, since the German language often seems to have more exceptions than rules, but it’s a good general guideline. Also, simply knowing that there are different types of verbs in both languages can help you comprehend German grammar better.

Grammar elements that are easier in German than English If you glance at this whole article, you’ll probably notice that this section is short. Yeah, sorry about that. If you’re looking for more good news about learning German, though, since that’s easier in German than in English.

Unfortunately, German grammar is a bit more intricate, let’s say, than English grammar. There just tend to be more tricky spots that confuse German learners, especially those who are used to English. Nevertheless, there are still a few bright spots. No progressive tenses The sentences “I eat” and “I am eating” are the same in German: “Ich esse.” You may think that’s confusing.

After all, if someone says “Ich esse Fisch,” do they mean “I eat fish” or “I am eating fish”? But in reality, you can basically always figure out the speaker’s meaning from context. For example, if you’re going into the cafeteria and your friend says “Heute esse ich Fisch,” then he or she added the heute (“today”), which shows that it’s just a one-time thing, not a frequent action. Likewise, if someone who’s invited you to dinner asks you, “Isst du Fisch?” then you can be sure that they’re asking if you generally eat fish, since they’re probably considering serving fish. This whole issue can actually cause problems and confusion for German speakers who are learning English, but since that’s not you, we’ll let them worry about it. Adverbs being basically the same as adjectives Look at these two sentences: Der Mann ist gut. (The man is good.) Der Mann singt gut. (The man sings well.) As you can see, here English is the language that looks a bit strange, since we change “good” to “well” when it becomes an adverb.

We also add a “-ly” to many other adverbs, while German doesn’t. Unfortunately, this silver lining is indeed surrounding a huge, dark cloud: The major caveat here is that I said adjectives are basically the same as adverbs, but that only counts for basic adjectives, like in the examples above.

However, if you put the adjectives before a noun, then you have to. Those endings mean that a simple word like gutcan also turn into gute, guter, gutes or guten, depending on the context. But that’s a matter for our next section. And One More Thing If you want to learn German grammar naturally with fun and authentic material, you’ll love FluentU! You’ll get to learn German with content that native German speakers actually watch on the regular. We’ve got everything from Volkswagen commercials to funny YouTube videos, scenes from “Guardians of the Galaxy” and the hit song “Let it Go” from “Frozen.” Just a quick look will give you an idea of the diverse content available: Love the idea of watching fun, authentic videos, but worried about understanding them well enough? FluentU brings native videos within reach with its interactive subtitles.

While watching your chosen videos, you can tap on any subtitled word to look it up instantly. Every definition has examples that have been written to help you understand how the word is used by modern natives. If you see an interesting word you don’t know, you can simply tap “add” to save it to your vocab list. As you can see, FluentU isn’t just for watching videos.

It’s a unique language learning program designed to get you to total German mastery, complete with active learning tools like vocabulary lists, multimedia flashcards and more. Even the flashcards have something special to offer learners—they integrate video clips, imagery and audio to create rich, memorable learning experiences and help you retain German vocabulary better than ever. The best part is that FluentU keeps track of your progress and recommends relevant content based on what you’ve already learned.

If you’re ready to start learning German with video content,!