The passive voice is usually used when the person who does an action is not clear, not important or not known. There are, however, some alternative ways to avoid naming the person or thing acting in the sentence. The German Passive voice is most typically formed with the auxiliary verb "werden" and the participle of another verb. There, however, a few alternatives that can be used. 

The German verb lassen is a very useful irregular (strong) verb with the basic meaning of "to allow" or "to let." But it has many other meanings and is used often in everyday German.

This is a review of the German A2 Unit:  The genitive case in English or in German shows a relationship between two nouns. The noun in the genitive case modifies (tells us something about) the other noun. The first noun is part of, connected to, belongs to, or depends on the noun in the genitive case.

This is a review of the German A2 Unit: Some genitive prepositions are still used, but more and more are replaced by dative constructions. How does one know what to use and when? There are 12 common genitive prepositions.

This is a review of the German A2 Unit: The past perfect or pluperfect (Plusquamperfekt) expresses actions that took place before a certain point in the past. It is the German equivalent of the English past perfect tense. We use this tense in storytelling together with the simple past, to look back at something that happened before a past event. It is the German equivalent of the English past perfect tense. 

Relative clauses are used extensively in German, and they use dependent word order (i.e. the conjugated verb moves to the end of the clause). In addition, the grammar of the relative clause remains independent of the grammar of the main clause.

German modal particles (Modalpartikel) are uninflected words that are used mainly in the spontaneous spoken language in colloquial registers in German. Their dual function is to reflect the mood or the attitude of the speaker or the narrator and to highlight the sentence's focus.

If you plan to improve your German by reading news articles, this is an important form to learn. The special subjunctive appears most frequently in restatements of what someone else has claimed.

By using the special subjunctive, for example, a newspaper can assert its own neutrality concerning the validity of a claim.

When als (als ob, als wenn) is used to mean as if or as though, the verb in its clause should be in the subjunctive. Subjunctive II (general subjunctive) occurs more frequently than Subjunctive I (special subjunctive).

To conjugate modal verbs in the Perfekt, we still need the auxiliary “haben” (conjugated with the subject). The difference here is made by the two infinitives at the end of sentence. That is why we call this “double infinitive”. When the modal verb is associated with another verb in the sentence, we need to form a double infinitive, with the modal verb in the infinitive at the very end, preceded by the other verb in the infinitive. 

Most two-part conjunctions in German have direct English equivalents, so it's faster to learn them by example than to break them down grammatically. The easiest are either/or and neither/nor.

Demonstrative pronouns in German, just like in English, will be used to point to, emphasize or distinguish something specific within a sentence. A demonstrative pronoun can be used for a person, thing, plant or animal, or even idea, place or event.

They will often place extra emphasis on the thing referred to.

Prepositions in combination with verbs can specify things like position, time, possession or the way something is done. German verbs with prepositions can have fixed meanings, or a verb can take various prepositions to express different things. 

In English, we would say "the more you practice, the better you will speak German." In German, these types of parallel comparatives are called Proportionalsätze. Je+ comparative adjective (phrase), destoor umso+ comparative adjective (phrase).

A relative clause is a clause that allows us to add more information or detail about a noun or pronoun. We can insert a relative clause into a main clause and behind which ever noun we wish to add more information about. 

Be careful not to confuse these two words with the similar-looking demonstrative pronouns dieselbe etc. When selbst precedes the noun or phrase to which it relates, then it has the emphatic meaning "even". In other positions, selbst is completely equivalent to selber, that is, a demonstrative pronoun translated as a “-self” word.

Es is used in daily conversation such as when describing the weather or stating the time. Es ​however, is used more often in German. Also, not only can the position of es be changed, it can even be eliminated, depending on its function.

Not only will learning idioms improve your German comprehension, but it’ll also give you insight into German culture and history. Here are some of the most common German idioms.

There are 6 basic tenses in German. The two ‘simple’ tenses are present and simple past. They use just one, conjugated verb. The four ‘compound’ tenses are present perfect, past perfect, future, and future perfect.