Need-to-Know English Grammar for Successful German Learning [Parts of Speech]

I learned more about English grammar in my German classes than I ever learned in any of my English classes.

The reason for this wasn’t because I only ever had horrible English teachers (quite the contrary! I still remember the preposition song set to the tune of “Yankee Doodle” my 6th grade Language Arts teacher made us learn that has served me well); the reason is because I was raised in an English-speaking society/household. Being immersed in the language and observing others around me since birth taught me that, “The dog brown I yesterday walked” wasn’t normal English sentence structure, and that the better answer would be, “I walked the brown dog yesterday.” I didn’t need to know any more about the rules of English grammar than what was accepted as understandable and ‘normal-sounding’ by my peers and what wasn’t. Listening to and reproducing grammatically correct sentences was way more efficient than spending my English classes mapping out sentence structures and understanding the linguistic reasons behind why “The dog brown I yesterday walked” is wrong. I already knew that it sounded wrong, so I wan’t going to say it; my school recognized that and instead spent the time I could have been mapping out sentence structures teaching me more vocabulary and poetic forms. For practicality’s sake, they made the right choice.  It wasn’t until I began learning German that I needed to give thought to how languages worked, piece by piece.

When I began learning German, with all of its “strange” grammar rules, my only frame of reference was English grammar– of which I didn’t understand the mechanics. Because I didn’t learn those grammar rules in English class, I had to learn them in my German class so I could decipher how German grammar functions.

There is at least one book out on the market that recognized this conundrum and tried to fill the void. I have never read it, so I can’t attest to whether or not it is worth your money– but I assure you the problem it is attempting to solve is real. That being said, I’m not trying to plug the entire gaping hole that is the void of English grammar comprehension. I’m instead going to explain the very basics you will need to know in order to get through my other posts without having a dictionary of grammatical terms pulled up in an adjacent window. Additionally, when relevant, my posts on each specific subject matter will go more in depth with additional grammar terms. For now, we’re just going to brush up on some vocabulary. Parts of speech in parentheses are classes of words that aren’t technically one of the 8 official parts of speech, but are necessary to understand other parts of speech, or are very closely related to one of the 8 official parts of speech. I have listed and explained them for your benefit.

One last thing before we get started! There is a magnificent resource for learning Grammar functions called “Schoolhouse Rock!” A group of people decided to use the catchiness of music and lyrics to educate students and help them better remember tricky subject matters. There is a whole section called “Grammar Rock!” For the parts of speech that have a “Grammar Rock!” song available, I have listed a youtube.com link under “Additional Resources.”

Parts of Speech

• NOUN –
  • What is it? a word for a person, place or thing.
  • Examples: doctor, post office, dog.
  • Why do we care?  These are vital for German because all nouns are capitalized. Additionally, each noun in German has an assigned gender.
  • Additional Resources: A Noun Is A Person, Place Or Thing
• (PROPER NOUN) – 
  • What is it?  a noun representing unique entities.
  • Examples: Germany, Main street, the President
  • Why do we care? These become irrelevant in German as all nouns are capitalized.
• PRONOUN – 
  • What is it? a word that substitutes for a noun or noun-phrase
  • Examples: I, you, he, she, it, we, they, me, him, her, us, them.
  • Why do we care? These become vital for German verb conjugation.
  • Additional Resources: Rufus Xavier Sarsaparilla
• (REFLEXIVE PRONOUN) – 
  • What is it? a pronoun serves to show that the sentence’s subject also receives the action of the verb as the object.
  • Examples: myself, me, yourself, himself, herself, itself, yourselves, themselves.
  • Why do we care? There are many German verbs that require reflexive pronouns. Determining accusative or dative case is vital only for the correct reflexive conjugation of “I” and informal “you,” but each regular pronoun changes in reflexive situations.
  • Additional Resources: Reflexive pronouns explained by a different author.
• (RELATIVE PRONOUN) – 
  • What is it? words that relate groups of words to nouns or other pronouns and begin relative clauses (which I discuss in this other post).
  • Examples: that, who, whoever, whom, whomever, which, whichever, whose and of which .
  • Why do we care? These words require declension based on their case in the sentence as nominative, accusative, dative or genitive and gender.
  • Additional Resources: Relative pronouns explained by a different author.
• (INDEFINITE PRONOUN) – 
  • What is it? words that relate groups of words to nouns or other pronouns and begin relative clauses (which I discuss in this other post).
  • Examples: everybody, anybody, somebody, all, each, every, some, none, one. There are also other indefinite pronouns that double as determiners: enough, few, fewer, less, little, many, much, several, more, most, all, both, every, each, any, either, neither, none, some.
  • Why do we care? These words require declension based on their case in the sentence as nominative, accusative, dative or genitive and gender.
  • Additional Resources: Relative pronouns explained by a different author. Or another author still, with an extensive list of indefinite pronouns and their grammatical behavior in German.
• (DETERMINER) –
  • What is it? a word that indicates whether the noun is referring to a definite or indefinite object/element of a larger class.
  • Examples: There are four different classes of determiners:
    • articles = the/a/an
    • demonstratives = this/that
    • possessive = my/their; and
    • quantifiers = many/few/several.
  • Why do we care? These are much more complicated in German than in English, which I explain in detail in a different post. The determiner is fully dependent on the gender of the noun it is connected to, as well as that noun’s case– and this relationship determines the German word used for the determiner.
• ADJECTIVE – 
  • What is it? a word used to describe a noun or a noun-phrase.
  • Examples: big, fluffy, orange, round, recent.
  • Why do we care? These take on endings based on the gender of the noun it is connected to, as well as that noun’s case. Additionally, when you start introducing comparative/superlative adjectives to your sentences, the German word for your adjective may change.
  • Additional Resources: Unpack your Adjectives
• VERB – 
  • What is it? a word used to denote action, occurrence or a state of being.
  • Examples: bring, become, exist.
  • Why do we care? Most of German’s sentence structure is dependent on verbs. Each verb has a conjugation table that is navigated using its actor’s respective pronoun. There are also various tenses which can dramatically change the verb. These tenses are discussed in the second portion of this other post.
  • Additional Resources: Verb: That’s What’s Happenin’
• (AUXILIARY VERB) – 
  • What is it? also known as a “helping verb,” these are verbs that add functional or grammatical meaning to the clause in which it appears. They can denote tense or modality.
  • Examples: She is going home. That would be fun.
  • Why do we care? German tense is highly dependent on these verbs, and their placement in the sentence is crucial to sentence structure.
• ADVERB – 
• • What is it? a word that further describes a verb, adjective, adverbs, clauses or sentences. I can denote the manner, place, time, frequency, certainty or circumstances of the verb action.
  • Examples: quickly, quietly, recently, soon, together.
  • Why do we care? Be thankful for adverbs, because they are one of the few parts of speech that don’t rely on the noun’s gender and role in the sentence! They do play a part in sentence structure, seeing as they can describe the time or manner of action, and German sentences try to specify time, then manner, then the place of action. The only time adverbs get crazy is when you start with comparative/superlative forms of the adverbs, as the German word for your adverb may change.
  • Additional Resources: Lolly, Lolly, Lolly, Get Your Adverbs Here
• (PARTICIPLE) –
  • What is it? a verb used as modifier for a noun, noun phrase, verb or verb phrase. There are two kinds, present and past. Present participles usually end in “-ing.” Past participles usually end in “-ed.”
  • Examples: The beaming mother clapped, astounded by her son’s obvious talent.
  • Why do we care? In German specifically, prepositions hold a lot of power over the noun case (which affects determiners and other parts of speech endings). Some German prepositions are always accusative, some are always dative, some are always genitive and some switch betwee

  participles (including present and past) http://grammar.about.com/od/pq/g/particterm.htm

• (COMPARATIVE) – 
  • What is it? a word that quantifies the degree of the adjective or adverb, in comparison to another entity or group of entities.
  • Examples: bigger, more recent, less common.
  • Why do we care? Just like in English, an ended is added to the adjective or adverb, and sometimes there are specific prepositions involved.
• (SUPERLATIVE) – 
  • What is it? a word that quantifies the extreme embodiment of the base adjective or adverb.
  • Examples: biggest, most recent, least common.
  • Why do we care? Just like in English, an ended is added to the adjective or adverb, and sometimes there are specific prepositions involved.
• PREPOSITION – 
  • What is it? a word that expresses spatial or temporal relations. Usually relates nouns, adjectives or verbs.
  • Examples: above, through, in, before
  • Why do we care? These words are tricky in German (and every other foreign language) because they are not always directly translatable between English and German, Example: (English) I live with my aunt. (German) I live by my aunt. You will have to learn which ones to use when as you go. Additionally, in German specifically, prepositions hold a lot of power over the noun case (which we know affects determiners and adjective endings). Some German prepositions are always accusative, some are always dative, some are always genitive and some switch between accusative and dative based on the relation they describe. In my preposition post I list the accusative, dative, genitive and two-way prepositions for you.
  • Additional Resources: Busy Prepositions
• CONJUNCTION – 
  • What is it? a word that connects words, phrases or clauses.
  • Examples: There are three types
    • coordinating = and/but/for/nor/or/so/yet
    • correlative = either…or/not only… but (also)/neither… nor/both… and/whether… or/just as… so
    • subordinating = after/although/as/as far as/as if/because/before/even if/even though/if/ in order that/ since/so/so that/than/though/unless/until/when/whenever/where/whereas/wherever/while.
  • Why do we care? These words can have major roles in determining German sentence structure. German also has specific correlative pairs you will need to learn.
  • Additional Resources: Conjunction Junction
• INTERJECTION/EXCLAMATION – 
  • What is it? a word or phrase used to express emotion, followed by an exclamation mark. They are also words that interrupt the sentence at hand (such as filled pauses).
  • Examples: Yes! Oops! Ouch! Shh! um, yeah, uh.
  • Why do we care? German has its own words for these common interjections. They are functionally the same at their English counterparts.
  • Additional Resources: Interjections!
• (ONOMATOPOEIA) – 
  • What is it?  a word that phonetically imitates, resembles or suggests the source of the sound that it describes. Think animal noises.
  • Examples: oink, meow, squeak, boom, bang.
  • Why do we care? German, like most languages, has its own onomatopoeia words. They are functionally the same at their English counterparts.
• (AFFIX) – 
  • What is it? a morpheme that is attached to a word stem to form a new word. The same affix generally has the same effect on the word stems it is attached to.
  • Examples: There are 11 different types of affix, but the two most common types are the:
    • Prefix = an affix placed at the beginning of a word to form a new word. Ex: asymmetric. atypical. atheist. “a-” = not; misbehave. misrepresent. misspell.  “mis-” = bad/wrong. An extensive list of other English prefixes can be found here.
    • Suffix = an affix placed at the end of a word to form a new word. Ex:  biology. endocrinology. criminology. “-ology” = the study of; beautiful, wonderful, colorful. “-ful” = having the possession of the quality of that noun.
  • Why do we care? German has its own affixes and associated meanings. Affixes as a whole serve the same function as English affixes, but the ones used may not map directly to the German vocabulary. Ex: “beautiful” in English is an adaptation of the word “beauty”, with the suffix added, but the German word for “beautiful,” “schön” has no suffix attached, where as the word for beauty, “Schönheit” does have a suffix added. German suffixes in particular can have a direct connection with the gender of the noun. Ex: “-chen,” meaning “little” is always neuter.
• (PARTICLE) –
  • What is it? A particle is a word that does not fit into the conventional grammar categories. They perform definite grammatical functions, but lack definite lexical meaning.
  • Examples: The storm tore up my yard. She passed on the family heirloom to her grandchild. 
    
  • Why do we care? German uses particles as flavor words– they impart attitude, opinion or emphasis. Commonly used ones include: ja, halt, aber, denn, schon, and the imfamous “doch.” The more you hear these words used properly, the clearer their meaning and usage will become. Like in English, man particles are also re-purposed prepositions. Wikipedia explains:
    

    Aber, for example, is also the conjunction but. In Er ist Amerikaner, aber er spricht gut Deutsch, “He is American, but he speaks good German,” aber is a conjunction connecting two sentences. But in Er spricht aber gut Deutsch!, the aber  is a particle, with the sentence perhaps best translated as “What good German he speaks!”

So, there you have it! These are the building blocks for your future German sentences! The way that they relate to one another/interact with each other is the grammar. Think of it as a soccer game (because Germans LOVE soccer): The parts of speech are the players on the field, and you are the referee that has to determine the manners in which they can play with one another. Goalies are allowed to use their hands, but other players aren’t. There are special cases for each part of speech as well. If they break any of the rules of conduct, you blow the whistle and throw a flag. We’ll talk about these rules in detail in the coming posts. Hopefully they will help you with your grammar-learning… GOAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sorry. That pun was BEGGING to be played. I understand if you wish to bench me for that one. I hope you will continue reading despite my awful humor. : )

 

German Grammar — What you Need to Know

Most of German grammar relies on 7 things:

1. Capitalization
2. Noun Genders (and their effects on everything)
3. Noun Cases (and their effects on everything)
4. Definite, Indefinite and Unprecedented Articles (and their effects on Determiners and Adjective Endings)
5. Prepositions (and their effects on Noun Cases)
6. Verb Conjugation and
7. Word (specifically Verb) Order.

Let’s get dig in a little bit and see why these 7 things are pivotal to learning grammatically correct German.

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1). Capitalization

German nouns are capitalized, every time. Adjectives are never capitalized, unless they begin a new sentence. Capitalize the first letter of a new sentence. Bam.

2) Noun Genders (and their effects on everything)

Every German noun has a gender. It falls into one of three options:

1) Masculine
2) Feminine
3) Neuter

Sometimes there is rhyme or reason to the gender allocations to the nouns, but sometimes it seems totally haphazard. Your best bet is to memorize the gender when you first learn the vocab word. Genders for nouns and adjectives are generally related to/derived from the last syllable of the noun. If you don’t know the gender, you can usually form an educated guess by looking at that last syllable. Words that are obviously derived from English or other languages are generally gender neutral.

Then, each noun can be pluralized, which creates a 4th category of “gender.”

4) Plural.

Each of these genders has an effect on the grammar of the sentence.

3) Noun Cases (and their effects on everything)

German has four cases which help determine the actors and objects in a sentence… which you will eventually appreciate when you learn more about German word order rules and how they are very different from English.

1) Nominative: The subject of a sentence, the thing doing the action
2) Accusative: The direct object, the thing which is directly receiving the action, or the object of certain prepositions.
3) Dative: The indirect object, as in when an object is given to someone, or the object of certain prepositions and verbs
4) Genitive: The possessor of something, or the object of certain prepositions or verbs; in English “Whose?”

Here is an example sentence to break down:

The girl gave the boy their mother’s book.

The girl is the subject. (Nominative)
The book is the direct object. (Accusative)
The boy is the indirect ‘object’. (Dative)
The mother is the possessor. (Genitive)

So, if we were going to apply German grammar rules to that sentence, we would have to take into account both the case of each noun, as well as the gender of the word and use that information to determine the correct word or endings that need to be applied. Pronouns, like nouns, also undergo change in relation to case. 

These combinations can easily be represented on a chart, with the cases along the Y axis and genders along the X axis.

In upcoming posts, there are 5 charts set up like this to help you navigate all of the possibilities. You determine which chart to use by determining if you are talking about a Definite, Indefinite or Unprecedented Article and if you are trying to determine the grammatical information about a Noun or an Adjective (ending).

Based on a combination of the gender of the noun and its position in the sentence (nominative, accusative, dative) there are:

–6 different definite articles, or words for “the” (der words).

• der (masculine)
• die (feminine or plural)
• das (neuter)
• den (variable)
• dem (variable)
• des (variable)

–6 different indefinite article endings, or words for “a” (ein words), which are also the 6 possible adjective endings.

• -er
• -e
• -es
• -en
• -em
• – (none)

My first German teacher advised me to memorize these 5 charts early on. I rebelled, and I regret it immensely! If I were any less afraid of needles, I seriously would have gotten them tattooed on my forearm for test-taking purposes during my semester abroad in Germany. Yes, they are THAT vital to your grammatical success. 

4) Definite, Indefinite and Unprecedented Articles (and their effects on Determiners and Adjective Endings)

For the record, “Determiner” is the part of speech that the words “the” and “a” (or “an”) belong to. This is relevant because, as we mentioned in #2, these words change in relation to the Case of the Noun that the Determiner it is attached to.

• Definite articles are specific nouns: I want the fresh bread. I want the pencil.
• Indefinite articles are less specific nouns: I want a piece of fresh bread. I want a pencil.
• Unprecedented articles are nouns with no determiner present: I want   fresh bread. I want   pencils.

You have to determine what sort of article the Noun in question is before you can pick which (Noun Case) x (Noun Gender) chart you need to reference.

5) Prepositions (and their effects on Noun Cases)

The most difficult part of learning of any language, I have been told, is learning to understand prepositions. In English we think “about” someone, while in German, you think “on” someone. Unfortunately, German preposition troubles don’t stop there. They have the power to affect the case of the object noun. The object noun is the one receiving the action of the verb (Ex: The cat ran through the forest.).

There are 3 types of prepositions:

• Accusative
• Dative
• 2-way

Some prepositions always render the object noun accusative. Some prepositions always render the object noun dative. Some prepositions are dependent on whether your noun is answering the question “where?” or “where to?”. I will have a whole post dedicated to this topic in greater detail (including the lists of these prepositions). The reason I bring it up now is because if your sentence uses a preposition, this will affect your noun case, which we discovered in #2 also affects your adjective endings and choice of determiner/article.

6) Verb Conjugation

Unfortunately, as a native English speaker, we are less in tune with verb conjugation than many other language speakers of the world. The conjugations of the verb are dependent on the subject noun or pronoun of the sentence. The subject noun of the sentence is the noun doing the action (Ex: The cat ran through the forest). The best example in English is the verb “to be”:

• I am
• You are
• He/She/It is
• We are
• They are

In German, every verb requires conjugation. Luckily, most verbs follow the same standard conjugation pattern. However, there are verbs that take strange variations to their conjugations, like Modal Verbs. I will further explain standard conjugation and modal verb conjugations, as well as extrapolations on verbs in different tenses in coming posts.

Conjugation also determines whether or  not the verb is being used imperatively (command form).

7) Word (specifically Verb) Order

When constructing a perfect German sentence, it is important to pay attention to word order.

Despite all of the noise above about Nouns– Verbs are really king when it comes to German. They, and their relationship to all other parts of the sentence, determine the word order.

• In simple sentences, the verb always comes second. Subject –> Verb –> (Object, if applicable).
  • Ex: I paint pictures.
• If there is more than one verb in the sentence, the subject’s direct verb goes second, and all other verbs cluster at the end in their infinitive form. This can become rather confusing in long sentences, but it becomes much easier in practice… and you’ll learn to love defaulting to the infinitive verb form.
  • Ex1: I can paint pictures. –> I can pictures paint.
  • Ex2: We can go swimming tomorrow. –> Tomorrow can we swimming going.
• If not using a question word (who, what, where, when, why, how), German requires that the verb comes first to denote a question. This helps with clarification between statements and questions (as does intonation and punctuation).
  • Ex: Are you coming with us? –> Coming you with us?
• Coordinating conjunctions denote a “resetting” or word order. It applies the word order rules separately to each clause.
  • Ex: We have eaten dinner and now we are tired. –> We have dinner eaten and now are we tired.
• Subordinating conjunctions will alter verb/word order by creating a subordinate clause. Where you choose to put the subordinate clause will determine your sentence structure. I will go over this in greater detail in a future post.
  • Ex1 (Subordinate clause last): We want candy because we are hungry. –> We want candy, because we hungry are.
  • Ex2 (Subordinate clause first): Because we have eaten, we are tired. –> Because we eaten have, are we tired.

Other things to note about word order include:

• Unlike English, German follows the pattern of addressing the Time, Manner and Place of action in that order.
  • Ex: We will go to the bank with our check tomorrow. –> Tomorrow will we with our check to the bank going.
• Like English, German places the adjective in front of the noun it describes and the adverb in front of the verb it describes (except when there is more than one verb in the sentence).
• Verb negations come after the verb.
  • Ex: He does not laugh. –> He laughs not.

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And there you have it! The basics of “The Awful German Language,” as Mark Twain called it.

There is a lot to take in, memorize and apply, but take a breath and take heart!

Although you undoubtedly should dedicate time and effort to memorizing  all of the rules and charts to perfect your German grammar, if you use incorrect combination of “the”-s, “a”-s, endings, or conjugations, German speakers will usually understand you. Just don’t get too comfortable being understood in spite of your poor grammar, or else you may end up having to talk yourself out of grammar chart tattoos later on in life too!