In German, verbs with separable prefixes often surprise learners because the prefix moves to the end of the sentence. This structure can initially confuse the meaning until the entire sentence is read. Mark Twain humorously highlighted this challenge in “The Awful German Language,” noting the difficulty of dealing with these tricky particles: “The Germans have…
When we talk about movement, from point A to B, we apply the Accusative case. Here’s an easy way to remember: ACtive -> ACcusative
Always ask the question, “Wohin” (where to?), when considering the accusative with these prepositions.
The difference with Dative is that we’re talking about a static situation. The question to ask here is “Wo?” (where?).
Review the difference between German accusative and dative prepositions and two-way prepositions.
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. When learning the tenses in German from the perspective of an English speaker, it is important to try to remember…
Not only will learning idioms improve your German comprehension, but it’ll also give you insight into German culture and history. German idioms are chock-full of references to popular German foods like sausages, bread rolls and mustard. I Only Understand Train Station German: Ich verstehe nur Bahnhof Meaning: I don’t understand anything. It’s all Greek to…
The German personal pronoun es is the English equivalent of it and has similar functions. Es is certainly used as “it” in both the nominative and accusative cases, but it has other functions as well. For example, es is used in daily conversation such as when describing the weather or stating the time. There are some…
When selbst precedes the noun or phrase to which it relates, then it has the emphatic meaning “even”, as an adverb. In other positions, selbst is completely equivalent to selber, that is, a demonstrative pronoun translated as a “-self” word. In this meaning, you again need to pay close attention to position in the German sentence. When it immediately follows…
A Relative Pronoun is a pronoun that introduces two types of clauses, namely, a relative clause/ adjective clause and a noun clause. The commonly used Relative Pronouns are which, that, who, whose, and whom. “That,” “which,” and “who” are the Relative Pronouns that function as the subjects of the relative clauses When the antecedent is…
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 and in German there are a number of verbs that use prepositions to convey a very…
Demonstrative pronouns in German, just like in English, is used to point to something specific within a sentence. A demonstrative pronoun can be used for a person, thing, plant or animal, or even idea, place or event. Demonstrative pronouns are also called indicative pronouns, and can replace previously mentioned nouns in a sentence. We use them to point to something…