Case Masculine Feminine Neuter Plural

Nominative der die das die

Accusative den die das die
Case Masculine Feminine Neuter
Nominative ein eine ein
Accusative einen eine ein
The fact that most words in German are affected by the case explains why the sentence
order is more flexible than in English. For example, you can say "Das Mdchen hat den
Apfel" (the girl has the apple) or "Den Apfel hat das Mdchen." In both cases, "den Apfel"
(the apple) is the accusative object, and "das Mdchen" is the nominative object.









Conjugations of the Verb Sein
The verb "sein" (to be) is irregular, and its conjugations simply need to be memorized:
German English
ich bin I am
du bist you (singular) are
er/sie/es ist he/she/it is
wir sind we are
ihr seid you (plural) are
sie sind they are
Sie sind you (formal) are




Contractions
When a preposition and a definite article are combined or contracted in German, a new
word is formed. For instance, "in dem" (in the) becomes "im" like in "Der Mann ist im
Restaurant" (the man is in the restaurant). Note that the best translation of a contraction
includes the definite article "the" (and not the indefinite article). Below is a table with
common contractions:
Original Contraction English
an + dem am at the/on the
bei + dem beim by the/at the
zu + dem zum to the