WELCOME TO GERMAN :)

Welcome to the German course! We will provide you with tips and notes throughout the course.
However, be aware that these are optional. Only read them when you fell stuck, or when you are
interested in the details. You can use the course without them.

Often, it's best to just dive into the practice. See how it goes! You can always revisit the Notes
section later on.

CAPITALIZING NOUNS
In German, all nouns are capitalized. For example, "my name" is mein Name, and "the apple"
is der Apfel. This helps you identify which words are the nouns in a sentence.

GERMAN GENDERS ARE STRANGE

Nouns in German are either feminine, masculine or neuter. For example, Frau (woman) is
feminine, Mann (man) is masculine, and Kind (child) is neuter.

While some nouns (Frau, Mann, …) have natural gender like in English (a woman is female, a man
is male), most nouns have grammatical gender (depends on word ending, or seemingly random).

For example, Mädchen (girl) is neuter, because all words ending in -chen are
neuter. Wasser (water) is neuter, but Cola is feminine, and Saft (juice) is masculine.

It is important to learn every noun along with its gender because parts of German sentences
change depending on the gender of their nouns.

For now, just remember that the indefinite article (a/an) ein is used for masculine and neuter
nouns, and eine is used for feminine nouns. Stay with us to find out how "cases" will later modify
these.

gender indefinite article

masculine ein Mann

neuter ein Mädchen

feminine eine Frau

VERB CONJUGATIONS

Conjugating regular verbs

Verb conjugation in German is more complex than in English. To conjugate a regular verb in the
present tense, identify the stem of the verb and add the endingcorresponding to any of the
grammatical persons, which you can simply memorize. For now, here are the singular forms:

Example: trinken (to drink)

English person ending German example

I -e ich trinke

you (singular informal) -st du trinkst

he/she/it -t er/sie/es trinkt

Conjugations of the verb sein (to be)

Like in English, sein (to be) is completely irregular, and its conjugations simply need to be
memorized. Again, you will learn the plural forms soon.

English German

I am ich bin

you (singular informal) are du bist

he/she/it is er/sie/es ist

UMLAUTS
Umlauts are letters (more specifically vowels) that have two dots above them and appear in some
German words like Mädchen.

Literally, "Umlaut" means "around the sound," because its function is to change how the vowel
sounds.

no umlaut umlaut

a ä

o ö

u ü
An umlaut change may change the meaning. That's why it's important not to ignore those little dots.
NO CONTINUOUS ASPECT
In German, there's no continuous aspect. There are no separate forms for "I drink" and "I am
drinking". There's only one form: Ich trinke.

There's no such thing as Ich bin trinke or Ich bin trinken!

When translating into English, how can I tell whether to use the simple (I drink) or the continuous
form (I am drinking)?

Unless the context suggests otherwise, either form should be accepted.