Parts of Speech

Nouns
In formal German writing first letters of nouns are always capitalized, but such rule is not always
respected in informal writings.

Gender is a property of a noun, and changes articles and adjectives.

Case is the role of a noun in a sentence, and changes articles and adjectives. Noun itself typicallz
does not change, but there are exceptions.

Gender heuristics
Nearly half of German nouns are feminine. Most of monosyllabic nouns are masculine. Many
nouns have endings that help us to guess their genders.

Masculine: -ant, -ast, -ich, -ig, -ismus, -ling, -or, -us, (most of) -en
days, months, seasons
Feminine: -a, -anz, -ei, -enz, -heit, -ie, -ik, -in, -keit, -schaft, -sion, -tät, -tion, -ung, -ur,
(most of) -e
Neuter: -chen, -lein, -ma, -ment, -sel, -tel, -tum, -um
nouns from verb infinitives, e.g. das Essen (the eating: food), das Lesen (the reading)
Articles
Definitive articles
Nominative Accusative Dative Genitive
Masculine der den
dem das
Neuter das
Feminine der
die
Plural den
Indefinitive articles
Nominative Accusative Dative Genitive
Masculine einen
einem eines
Neuter ein
Feminine eine einer
Plural keine keinen keiner

German nouns have one of three grammatical genders: masculine, feminine, and neuter, and
there exists a definite article for each gender: der, die, and das.

der Garten die Schule das Haus

the garden the school the house
der Winter die Temperatur das Pfund
the winter the temperature the pound
der Tee die Tomate das Jahr
the tea the tomato the year
There exist plural forms of nouns, often regularly formed by appending -n or -en, but sometimes
are irregular. Plural definite article is always die.
 der Mann ... die Männer
the man ... the men
die Sprache ... die Sprachen
the language ... the languages
das Magazin ... die Magazinen
the magazine ... the magazines
Tips for guessing a noun’s gender: Nearly half of German nouns are feminine, two-thirds of
monosyllabic nouns are masculine. Many nouns have common endings with predictable genders.

Masculine: -ant, -ast, -ich, -ig, -ismus, -ling, -or, -us, (most of) -en
days, months, seasons
Feminine: -a, -anz, -ei, -enz, -heit, -ie, -ik, -in, -keit, -schaft, -sion, -tät, -tion, -ung, -ur,
(most of) -e
Neuter: -chen, -lein, -ma, -ment, -sel, -tel, -tum, -um
nouns from verb infinitives, e.g. das Essen (the eating: food), das Lesen (the reading)
Case
German has four cases:

Nominative marks the subject and is the dictionary form.

Accusative marks the direct object and only masculine nouns change their articles or adjective
endings in the accusative case.

Dative marks the indirect object and all three genders change for the dative case.

Genitive is used to show possession. It is falling out of use in spoken German, replaced by
dative constructions.

Luckily, unlike in most IE languages, articles and adjectives are the only things that typically
change with cases! But not always…

Pronouns
Nominative Accusative Dative Genitive
I ich mich mir mein(er)
thou du dich dir dein(er)
he er ihn
ihm sein(er)
it es
she sie ihr ihrer
we wir uns unser
you ihr euch euer
(formal you) Sie Ihnen Ihrer
they sie ihnen ihrer
Possesive pronouns are like adjectives and can inflect. See the possesive adjectives subsection
under adjectives section.

Verbs
German verbs, unlike English, conjugate for pronouns but Tenses work similarly to English.
 Person
“Trink” is an example of German verb with regular conjugation.

Singular Plural
First -e -en
Second -st -t
Second (formal) -en -en
Third -t -en

Tense
Tenses for the verb “tun”:

Er tut es.
present
He does it.
preterite Er tat es.
(simple past) He did it.
Er hat es getan.
perfect
He has done it.
Er hatte es getan.
pluperfect
He had done it.
Er wild es tun.
future 1
He will do it.
Er wild es getan haben.
future 2
He will have done it.
There are six tenses but only three different conjugations; rest is done by auxiliary verbs.

The preterite is formed regularly by suffix “-te”, or irregularly. Preterite sounds formal and is
mostly used in written langauge while perfect is preferred in spoken language. Some preterite
forms like “tachte(denken)” and “wusste(wissen)” are still commonly used in spoken German.

The perfect is formed with haben and past participle. The regular form is using prefix “ge-“, but
like in English, there are plenty of irregular forms.

Sein
Present Singular Plural
Ich bin glücklich. Wir sind Freunde.
First
I am happy. We are friends.
Du bist lieb. Ihr seid lustig.
Second
Thou art nice. You are funny.
Er/Sie/Es ist hier. Sie sind Schüler.
Third
He/She/It is here. They are students.

Preterite Singular Plural

Ich war hier. Wir waren schlau.
First
I was here. We were clever
Du warst dar. Ihr wart laut.
Second
Thou wast there. You were loud.
 Er/Sie/Es war erfolgleich. Sie waren schön.
Third
He/She/It was successful. They were beautiful.

Perfect Singular Plural

First ?
Second
Third
Adjectives
German adjectives end in -m, -n, -r, -s, -e. These adjective ‘endings’, or declensions mark the
cases. All of the following German sentences are correct translation of the English sentence.

The kind man gives the sad dog a big bone.

Der nette Mann gibt dem traurigen Hund einen großen Knochen.

Dem traurigen Hund gibt der nette Mann einen großen Knochen.

Den großen Knochen gibt der nette Mann dem traurigen Hund.

Side note: Determiners are modifiers that come before nouns, but unlike adjectives they cannot
come with be-verbs after nouns. e.g. “this”, “that”, “one”, “many”, …

Prepositions
Each preposition takes either accusative, dative, or genitive case. Some take both accusative and
dative, and none takes nominative.

Accusative prepositions:
durch durch den Wald
through through the forest
für für dich
for for you
gegen gegen den Feind
against against the enemy
ohne ohne meinen Sessel
without without my armchair
um um den Berg
around, about around the mountain
bis seinen Tod
bis until his death
until, up to bis zum nächsten Woche
until (to the) next week
Dative prepositions:
aus aus der Stadt
from from the city
außer außer dem Mann
except except for the man
bei bei den Eltern
at, near at the parent’s place
 mit mit einen Freund
with with a friend
nach nach dem Ende
after, to after the end
seit seit langer Zeit
since, for for a long time
von von mir
from from me
zu zu euch
to to you
gegenüber dem Tisch gegenüber
across from across from the table
Both ways prepositions:
accusative dative
an
at, on
auf
upon, on
hinter
behind
in Wir rannten in das Museum. Wir rannten in dem Museum.
in, into We ran into the museum. We ran (around) in the museum.
neben
next to
über
above, over
unter
under
vor Er stellt die Kisten vor die Tür. Er stellt vor der Tür.
before, in front He places the boxes in front of the door. He is standing in front of the door.
Sie spaziert zwischen den
zwischen Sie läuft zwischen die Bäume.
Bäumen.
between She runs between the trees.
She walks through the trees.

Sentence Construction
German word order, while somewhat similar to English, has major differences. The most
fundamental difference is that German, unlike English is inflected language and has a lot of
flexibility with word order.