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!