Elementary German Grammar Topics

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German Adjectives Adverbs and Prepositions
Adjectives are words that describe nouns. Most adjectives are stand-alone words; however, present and past participles can also be used as adjectives. Numbers are also adjectives, though they do not decline. Adverbs based on adjectives are one of the simplest parts of German grammar. Any adjective can be used as an adverb simply by placing its uninflected form within the sentence, usually towards the end. Prepositions are words that are used to describe the relationship between one noun or pronoun (person, object, thing, etc.) to another noun or pronoun (person, object, thing, etc.) in a sentence.

  • Lesson-German Adjectives Adverbs and Prepositions
  • Reading Exercise-German Adjectives Adverbs and Prepositions
  • Writing Exercise-German Adjectives Adverbs and Prepositions
  • Listening Exercise-German Adjectives Adverbs and Prepositions

German Adverbs of Place
Adverbs provide information about how, where, when, to what degree, or how often an action takes place. They modify other adjectives and adverbs.Examples of adverbs of place (wo?): da dort hier oben unten vorne

German Adverbs of Time and Frequency
Adverbs provide information about how, where, when, to what degree, or how often an action takes place. They modify verbs or adjectives or other adverbs.examples of adverbs of time: heute gestern morgen neulich seitexamples of adverbs of frequency: manchmal oft ab und zu nie selten

German Comparative and Superlative Endings
If you’re comparing two things, people, actions, characteristics or qualities and they’re not equal, you need a comparative. Always form comparative by adding -er. Note variations on this for adjectives ending in -e, -er, or -el. Unlike in English, it can never be formed by “mehr + adjective.”

German Comparative
A comparative adjective in English is one with -er added to it or more or less in front of it, that is used to compare people or things. (slower, more beautiful) In German, to say that something is easier, more expensive and so on, you add -er to the simple form of most adjectives.

German Conjunctions and Word Order
In German, a conjunction either “coordinates” two “equally important” clauses, or it “subordinates” one clause to the other.Subordinating conjunctions make the verb go to the end in the clause. bevore ehe nachdem seit währendCoordinating conjunctions leave the verb position unchanged. und denn sondern aber oder

German Da Compounds
German can use words formed by affixing da– or dar– to the beginning of a preposition in order to refer back to something.Er schreibt damit. He writes with it.Sie sitzt darauf. She sits on it.

German Directional Adverbs
Adverbs of location will tell us where something is going to or coming from. They will always indicate some kind of movement.The questions they are answering are Wohin? (Where to?) and Woher? (Where from?)

German Future Perfect
The future perfect is a verb form or construction used to describe an event that is expected or planned to happen before a time of reference in the future. For example... will have finished in the English sentence "I will have finished by tomorrow." It is a combination of the future tense, or other marking of future time, and the perfect.

German Genitive Case Prepositions
A few German prepositions use the genitive case. That is, they take an object in the genitive case. See prepositions below:anstatt-instead of statt-instead of außerhalb-outside of innerhalb-inside of trotz-despite, in spite of während-during, in the course of wegen-because of

German Indefinite Pronouns
An indefinite pronoun is one of a small group of pronouns such as everything, nobody and something which are used to refer to people or things in a general way without saying exactly who or what they are.In German, the indefinite pronouns jemand (meaning someone, somebody) and niemand (meaning no-one, nobody) are often used in speech without any endings.

German Indirect Questions
Indirect questions are questions that are included within the structure of another sentence. They are are dependent clauses.The sentence structure of indirect questions in German grammar differs from that of normal questions – in indirect questions, the finite verb is placed at the end of the sentence. The rule for word order in indirect questions is: question-word + subject + object + verb.

German Konjunktiv II (present tense)

German Konjunktiv II Modal Verbs
Subjunctive with modal verbshätte is also the auxiliary verb in combination with the modal verbs: dürfen, können, mögen, müssen, sollen, wollen, and to express politeness or to describe a hypothetical situation.Eg: Ich hätte nicht einschlafen sollen!

German Modal Verbs in the Preterite
If you want to read a part of an older German fairy tale or if you are reading the latest news in the papers, chances are that you will stumble upon the German Präteritum (preterite, imperfect or simple past tense). It's a simple past tense that refers to events that happened in the past.

German Past Perfect Tense
The past perfect or pluperfect, also known as the Plusquamperfekt, expresses actions that took place before a certain point in the past.Example: Sie hatte sehr lange geübt, bevor sie das Stück so perfekt spielen konnte.

German Prepositions of Place
Prepositions of place show the relative location of subjects, objects or pronouns. Prepositions of place are: ab, an, auf, aus, außer, außerhalb, oberhalb, bei, diesseits, durch, gegen, hinter, in, innerhalb, jenseits, mit, nach, neben, über, um, unter, unterhalb, vor, von, zwischen, and zu.

German Reflexive Verbs in the Dative
A German reflexive verb describes an action of the subject where the action reflects back to the subject. German reflexive verbs are used in connection with a reflexive pronoun such as myself or yourself in English.sich abgewöhnen-to give something up sich anhören-to listen to sich ansehen-to watch something

German Reflexive Verbs with Accusative
The reflexive verb “sich freuen” has a nominative and a reflexive addition in the accusative. The reflexive addition is expressed by a reflexive pronoun.mich dich sich uns euch sich

German Review of Cases
Nominative • for the subject of a sentence • for predicate nouns Accusative • for the direct object of a sentence • after the accusative prepositions and postpositions • time expressions in a sentence are usually in accusative Dative • for the indirect object of a sentence • after the dative prepositions • after dative verbs: helfen, danken, gefallen, gehören, schmecken, passen • with some adjectives which describe a condition • the preposition “in” often uses the dative case Genitiv • possession, ownership, belonging to or with • “of” in English, when referring to a part or component of something else • in addition, there are a handful of prepositions that require the genitive

German Simple Past Tense
In German, the simple past is referred to as Präteritum. In English, the simple past is often used to discuss past events that have a definite timeframe, referring to when something happened. In German, it can be used the same way, though it’s generally used more in writing vs regular conversation.

German Strong Adjective Endings
German adjectives get very precise about their forms by aligning in several ways with the noun they describe (declension). Strong forms of adjectives are used with indefinite articles (“a/an” in English) or when there is no determiner.

German Subordinating Conjunctions
Subordinating conjunctions are used to connect an independent and dependent clause together. In German, this affects word order.

German Superlative
To build superlative forms and use them in a sentence, add the ending -sten or -esten to the adjective and place the word am (the) before the adjective. Depending on the context, we can also add -ste to the adjective and put the appropriate definite article before it.Spanisch ist am einfachsten. (Spanish is the easiest.)

German The Genitive Case
The genitive case is the lease used German case. The genitive case in English or in German shows a relationship between two nouns. The first noun is part of, connected to, belongs to, or depends on the noun in the genitive case. Think possession...

German Transition Words
Here are some common transition words in German:Vorher-before danach-after Weil-because (Immer) noch-still Deshalb-therefore Ganz im Gegenteil-on the contrary Aber-but

German Was für ein vs Welch
"Welch-" is often used when there are multiple options to choose from. It asks for a specific answer."Was für ein/e..." sounds more like you want to get a rough idea of the thing you're asking about.

German Weak Adjective Endings
There are two kinds of adjective endings, the strong ending and the weak ending. Whether you use a strong ending or a weak ending depends on which article (der, ein) is used. Use the weak ending following a definite article.

German Wo Compounds
Wo-compounds are used in questions when asking about the object of the preposition ('for what', 'about what', etc.).woran, wonach, wobei, wogegen, wovon, womit

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