Conjugating a regular verb means changing the infinitive form of it to indicate person, number, tense, voice and mood in a sentence. Subject and verb have to agree in order for a sentence to be grammatically correct and be understood.

For English speakers, the plural in German is difficult and sometimes confusing. We are happy to just add a simple "–s". In German it’s much more complicated. 

The accusative case is used to mark the direct object, that is, the person or thing receiving the action of the verb.

German has relatively flexible word order — certain grammar elements ( cases & declensions) make this possible. It seems tricky, but follows structured rules.

In German, words (nouns to be exact) have genders, even though they do not originate from the characteristics of the object. Let's learn more about German definite articles in the nominative and accusative cases.

In German we have two main indefinite articles in the nominative case: ein and eine. The German indefinite articles, ein/eine, are used just like the English letter "a" or "an".

Irregular verbs, also called strong verbs in German, can be distinguished from the other types of verbs. In German, there are about 150 strong verbs. The vowel, which normally changes in the verb, is called “Ablaut”.

Negation or negative sentences in German grammar are formed with the words nicht (not) and kein (no/none). The tricky part is understanding when to use nicht and when to use kein and where to put them in a sentence.

In German, it’s important to know possessive articles or adjectives: important words like my, your, his, her, its, our, and their.

The coordinating conjunctions do not modify the position of the verb in the clause. Here are a few.

und     and

aber     but

denn     because

oder     or

sondern     but (as in but rather)

In order to use basic German question words, you’ll need to memorize some new vocabulary. Here are 13 German question words.

Learn how to use the separable prefix verbs in German (also known as “trennbare Verben”). We explain when to separate the prefix from a German verb and when not to. Get a list of the separable prefixes.

In German, the meaning of cardinal numbers is digits such as 3 or 11 or 630 or any other number used in counting to indicate quantity but not order. First, second, third, etc., are ordinal numbers, usually coming before a noun. They can be written as 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc. 

The modal verbs in German are dürfen (be allowed to/may), können (be able to/can), mögen (to like/may), müssen (to have to/must), sollen (to ought to/should) and wollen (to want to). Modal verbs express ability, necessity, obligation, permission or possibility.

The present perfect tense is formed by using one of three types of past participles: weak (regular), strong (irregular), and mixed. This past tense form is often referred to as the "conversational past" since it is most often used in spoken German when speaking about events in the past.

German present perfect irregular verbs are formed by using strong (irregular) verbs. This past tense form is often referred to as the "conversational past" since it is most often used in spoken German when speaking about events in the past.

As with the other irregular verbs, the participles for mixed verbs need to be memorized. As their name implies, these mixed verbs mix elements of the weak and strong verbs to form their past participles. While they end in -t like weak verbs, they have a stem change like strong verbs.

The dative case is used to indicate the indirect object of a sentence. It answers the question: To or for whom? Just as with the nominative and accusative, the articles and personal pronouns change in the dative.

The German imperative (der Imperativ) is a mood in German grammar that expresses orders and commands. The German imperative only exists in the second person singular (du), plural (ihr) and polite form (Sie) as well as in the first person plural (wir).

The simple past tense endings are: -te (ich, er/sie/es), -test (du), -tet (ihr), and -ten (Sie, wir, sie [pl.]). Unlike English, the past tense ending is not always the same: I played = ich spielte, we played = wir spielten. Now let's look at all the conjugations of spielen in the simple past tense.

A few verbs have characteristics of irregular and regular verbs: their ending (-te- + personal ending) is regular but they have a vowel change. We call these "mixed verbs"

The following two-way prepositions are called Wechselpräpositionen in German (from the verb wechseln, to change). They’re accusative when they express motion/direction, and dative when they express only location

There are certain verbs in German that always put their object in the dative, even when there’s no preposition and it seems to be a direct object.

The German future tense occurs far less frequently than it does in English because German often substitutes the present tense for the future, especially when the specific time indicator is given.

Conditional clauses are dependent clauses that are introduced by the subordinating conjunction wenn. They express that an action will only take place under certain conditions. Conditional clauses can describe realistic situations as well as hypothetical ones.

Learn the rules for constructing real and unreal conditional clauses

Certain prepositions that are always governed by the dative case, which shows the indirect object in a sentence. These are the 9 German dative prepositions.

When you compare two objects due to a specific attribute, they can be even or uneven. We use “so … wie“, and “als” to form the German comparative.

German temporal prepositions are related to time and answer questions like "When?" and "For how long?"

All of the separable-prefix verbs form their past participle with ge-. Examples: Sie hat gestern angerufen

German Present Perfect Inseparable Prefix Verbs do not add the normal past participle prefix ge- in the perfect tenses. Examples: bekommen becomes hat bekommen