German Grammar: the Basics

German Grammar: the Basics

Edition 5 (27 February, 2011) by C.J. Dillon

Nouns

German nouns may have one of three genders – masculine, feminine or neuter. Most nouns denoting male people and animals are masculine, and so on, but there are many anomalies, e.g. das Mädchen 'the girl' is neuter, as is das Schwein 'the pig', but die Katze 'the cat' is feminine.

Plural of nouns

· Most masculine and neuter nouns take -e in the plural with an umlaut if there is an a, o or u in the stem, e.g. der Sohn 'the son' -> die Söhne.

o Nouns ending in -el, -en and -er do not add -e, e.g. der Apfel 'the apple' -> die Äpfel.

· Most feminine nouns take -(e)n in the plural, e.g. die Frau 'the woman' -> die Frauen.

There are many exceptions to these rules, some of which form quite large groups:

·  neuter nouns which take umlaut -er in the plural, e.g. das Glas 'the glass' -> die Gläser

·  neuter nouns which take -e (with no umlaut in the plural), e.g. das Jahr 'the year' -> die Jahre

·  feminine nouns which take umlaut -e in the plural, e.g. die Hand 'the hand' -> die Hände

·  'weak' masculine nouns which take -(e)n in all forms except the nominative (see Cases below) singular, e.g. der Bär 'the bear' -> die Bären and der Name 'the name' -> die Namen

o  Some weak nouns have -ns in the genitive, e.g. Name.

o  Herr has unusual endings: -n in accusative, dative and genitive (see Cases below) singular, but its plural is -en.

·  A small number of foreign-origin masculine and neuter nouns take -s in the plural, e.g. das Kino, das Büro. In colloquial speech, this ending is also used with words such as die Jungs 'boys' and die Onkels 'uncles'.

Sometimes you can predict the gender of a noun from its ending:

·  Most nouns indicating people and ending in -er are masculine, e.g der Bäcker 'the baker'.

·  Most nouns indicating people and ending in -in are feminine, e.g. die Polizistin 'the policewoman'.

·  Nearly all nouns ending in -heit, -ion, -keit, -schaft and -ung are feminine, e.g. Hoffnung 'the hope' and Integration 'integration'.

·  Many nouns ending in -e are feminine.

·  Infinitives (see below) are neuter when they are used as nouns, e.g Gründe für das Verkaufen bei eBay 'reasons for selling on eBay'.

·  All nouns ending in -chen are neuter, e.g. das Hündchen 'the puppy'.

Cases

German has four cases (which indicate the role of the noun in the sentence) — nominative (the subject), accusative (the object), dative (the indirect object: to, for) and genitive (of, 's, s').

In the sentence My brother gave my uncle's money to my sister 'my brother' is the subject, 'my uncle's money' is the object, and 'to my sister' is the indirect object. 'My uncle's' is genitive.

Nominative

The nominative is used:

·  for the subject of the sentence, e.g. Der Mann heißt Paul Schmidt. 'The man is called Paul Schmidt.'

·  after sein 'be', bleiben 'stay', werden 'become' and heißen 'be called' e.g. Das ist ein Hund 'that is a dog' and Ich werde der erste Weltmeister, der nicht Schumacher heißt 'I shall be(come) the first world champion who is not called Schumacher'.

Accusative

The accusative is used:

·  for the object of the sentence, e.g. Er sieht mich 'He sees me'

·  after certain prepositions, e.g. für den Mann 'for the man'

·  to indicate duration, e.g. Er sah sie einen Moment lang erstaunt an. 'He looked at her for a moment in astonishment.'

It only has separate forms for:

·  some personal pronouns (ich -> mich, du -> dich, er -> ihn, wir -> uns, and ihr -> euch). This is similar to the situation in English (I -> me etc.).

However, German goes further and masculine singular articles and adjectives have a characteristic -en ending:

·  masculine singular articles (see Articles below) (der -> den 'the', ein -> einen 'a, one' and kein 'not a' -> keinen)

·  masculine singular possessive pronouns (mein 'my' -> meinen, dein 'your' -> deinen, sein 'his' -> seinen, ihr 'her' -> ihren, unser 'our' -> unseren, euer 'your' -> eueren and sein 'their' -> seinen) Ihr 'your' -> Ihren' and

·  masculine singular adjectives (see Adjectives below) also change.

Examples:

Haben Sie Ihren Mitgliedsnamen vergessen? 'Have you forgot your member name?'

Hat er den Text gelesen? 'Has he read the text?'

The following prepositions always take the accusative:

durch 'through', entlang 'along' (follows the noun — die Straße entlang 'along the street'), für 'for', gegen 'against', ohne 'without' and um 'at (a time)'

Note:

Jemand 'somebody' and niemand 'nobody' have an optional -en in the accusative.

Example: Ich habe jemand(en) gefragt. 'I asked someone.'

Dative

The dative is used to indicate the indirect object, e.g. Ich gebe dir das Buch 'I'll give the book to you'.

Dative singular nouns in Modern German have no ending, although you will see an -e ending on masculine and neuter singular nouns in pre-WWII German, e.g. vor dem Kriege 'before the war' and in some set expressions, e.g. zu Hause 'at home' and nach Hause gehen 'go home'.

All dative plural nouns end in -n except for the small number of foreign-origin nouns with plurals in -s, e.g. das Auto 'the car'.

The following prepositions always take the dative:

ab 'from', aus 'from; made of', bei 'by, with (c.f. French chez)', gegenüber 'opposite' (follows the noun) e.g. dem Haus gegenüber 'opposite the house', mit 'with', nach 'to (a place name); after; according to*', seit 'since', von 'of, from', zu 'at, to'

*When nach means according to, it follows the noun, e.g. meiner Meinung nach 'in my opinion'.

Er kennt mich schon seit Jahren. 'He has known me (literally 'already') for years.'

Note how 'I have been …ing for' is handled in German: Ich lerne Deutsch seit acht Monaten 'I have been learning German for eight months'.

The dative is used after certain verbs, e.g. Ich verzeihe dir 'I forgive you':

antworten 'answer', befehlen 'order, danken 'thank', drohen 'threaten', erlauben 'allow', folgen 'follow', gefallen 'please', gehören 'belong', gratulieren 'congratulate', glauben 'believe', helfen 'help, passen 'suit', raten 'advise', zuhören 'listen' etc.

Jemand 'somebody' and niemand 'nobody' have an optional -em in the dative.

Example: Er hat niemand(em) geholfen. 'He helped nobody.'

Accusative or dative

Most prepositions only ever take one case, but the following take the dative to indicate 'stationary' or the accusative to indicate 'motion towards':

an 'at; to', auf 'on; onto', hinter 'behind', in 'in; into', neben 'next to', über 'over; about', unter 'under', vor 'before; in front' and zwischen 'between'

Examples:

auf dem Tisch 'on the table' <-> auf den Tisch 'onto the table'

Note that nach 'to (a place name) and zu 'to' take the dative, although they indicate 'motion towards'.

Genitive

The genitive indicates possession, or some vaguer connection. It usually corresponds to 'of, 's or s' in English.

Masculine and neuter singular nouns have -s in the genitive. Nouns other than the ones ending in -el, -en and -er may also form the genitive with -es

Feminine and plural nouns have no endings.

The genitive is not used much in spoken German. However one does hear it after: außerhalb 'outside', innerhalb 'inside', während 'during' and trotz 'in spite of', e.g. außerhalb der Altstadt 'outside the old city' and während des Krieges 'during the war'.

Noun modifiers

Note that auch 'too' and nur 'only' precede the noun to which they refer, e.g. Auch Sie können wieder jünger werden 'You too can be young (lit. 'become younger') again' and Nur er weiß 'Only he knows'.

Noun notation

In many dictionaries the following notation is used to describe nouns:

Sohn m. (-"e)

Frau f. (-en)

Schwein nt. (-e)

Bär m. (-en) (weak)

Prepostions

Pay careful attention to how prepositions are used and what case is used after them.

'Preposition + it' and 'preposition + question' are handled by 'da + preposition' and 'wo + preposition' respectively, e.g. damit 'with it'. If the preposition starts with a vowel an r creeps in between, e.g. darauf 'on it' (c.f. thereon, thereupon) and worüber 'what about'.

Preposition notation

gegen + Acc. 'against'; von + Dat. 'of, from'; in + Acc. 'into', + Dat. 'in' etc.

Articles

The (the definite article)

masculine / feminine / neuter / plural
nominative / der / die / das / die
accusative / den / die / das / die
dative / dem / der / dem / den
genitive / des / der / des / der

Note the following contractions in the accusative: an das -> ans, auf das -> aufs, in das -> ins and um das -> ums.

There are also the following contractions in the dative: an dem -> am, bei dem -> beim, von dem -> vom, zu dem -> zum and zu der -> zur.

Strong endings: aller 'all', dieser 'this’, jeder 'each’, solcher 'such' and mancher 'many' have similar endings to der:

masculine / feminine / neuter / plural
nominative / dieser / diese / dieses / diese
accusative / diesen / diese / dieses / diese
dative / diesem / dieser / diesem / diesen
genitive / dieses / dieser / dieses / dieser

The two differences from der are marked in blue.

A, one (the indefinite article)

masculine / feminine / neuter
nominative / ein / eine / ein
accusative / einen / eine / ein
dative / einem / einer / einem
genitive / eines / einer / eines

Again, the differences from der are marked in blue.

Mein 'my' and the other personal pronouns take the same endings as ein, as does kein 'not a'. Note the difference between kein and nicht ein 'not a single'.

Adjectives

Adjectives have no endings after sein 'be', werden 'become', 'aussehen 'look' etc.

Sie ist ganz schön. 'She is very beautiful.'

Er is plötzlich alt geworden. 'He has suddenly grown old.'

Adjectives before nouns:

1. When an adjective immediately precedes a noun, and there is no article or possessive, or the article or possessive has no ending (i.e. ein, unser etc.), the adjective takes strong endings (like dieser above).

2. When an adjective follows any article or possessive other than those listed in 1, or when the noun following the adjective has a genitive -s, the adjective takes weak endings:

· -e for the nominative (except the masculine singular -en)

· -en everywhere else.

Note forms like the following: ein kleiner* 'a little one' (i.e. baby or boy), eine kleine* 'a little one' (i.e. baby or girl), etwas Gutes 'something good', nichts Böses 'nothing bad'.

*Phonetically there is an interesting difference. '-ner' in ein kleiner is n followed by a very short a, whereas '-ne' in eine kleine is n followed by the sound in unstressed English 'the'.

Comparative and superlative

Add -er for the comparative, e.g. schnell 'quick' -> schneller 'quicker' and am -sten for the superlative, e.g. am schnellsten 'the quickest'.

One syllable adjectives usually take an umlaut in the comparative and superlative, e.g. alt 'old', älter 'older', am ältesten 'oldest'.

Er ist älter als du. 'He is older than you.' Er ist am ältesten. 'He's the oldest.'

Un-

This is a common adjectival prefix, meaning 'un-, not' etc., e.g. höflich 'polite' -> 'unhöflich 'rude'.

Usually the stress is on un-, as in the example above, but sometimes it is on the verb stem e.g. unüber'setzbar 'untranslatable', so each adjective needs to be looked up in the dictionary.

Adverbs

Most German adjectives can be used, with no ending, as adverbs.

Das hat er eiskalt ausgenutzt. 'He took advantage of that as cold as ice.'

Order of adverbial phrases

The order of adverbial phrases is usually 'time, manner, place', e.g.:

Am Montag bin ich schnell zum Bahnhof gefahren. 'I drove to the station quickly on Monday.'

Adverbs worth noting

Gern (irreg. comparative lieber, irreg. superlative am liebsten) is useful:

Ich schwimme gern 'I like swimming'.

Ich spiele Schach lieber 'I prefer playing chess.'

Ich singe am liebsten 'I like singing best.'

Her is used to indicate motion towards one and hin for motion away. They are not easy for English speakers. Note examples well when you see them.

Er muss hin*. 'He must go there.' Er ist ins Zimmer hereingekommen. 'He came/has come into the room.'

*Note that verbs of motion may be omitted after modal verbs (see Modal verbs below.).

Nicht goes to the end of the sentence (but not after an infinitive or past participle), unless it is negating some particular element:

Ich gehe nicht. 'I'm not going.'

Ich bin nicht gegangen. 'I didn't go.'

Ich kann nicht gehen. 'I can't go.'

Note that using nicht rather than kein adds a hint: 'Er schreibt nicht Bücher' would hint that he does write something else.

Verbs

As in English, there are two sorts ('conjugations') of verbs in German — weak and strong.

Weak verbs

Most verbs, including new coinings, are weak. They have the following endings:

present

ich arbeite

du arbeitest

er arbeitet

Sie 'she' and es 'it' always have the same form as er.

wir arbeiten*

ihr arbeitet

sie arbeiten*

Sie 'you' always has the same form as sie 'they', but is written with a capital letter.

*the same as the infinitive, the form you look for in the dictionary when looking up a verb

past

formed simply by inserting -te-, but note that there is no -t in the er form: