Basic German

A Grammar and Workbook

Heiner Schenke, Anna Miell, Karen Seago

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317658177
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Languages
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

Basic German: A Grammar and Workbook comprises an accessible reference grammar and related exercises in a single volume.

The book introduces German people and culture through the medium of the language used today, covering the core material which students would expect to encounter in their first years of learning German.

Each of the 29 units presents one or more related grammar topics, illustrated by examples which serve as models for the exercises that follow. These wide-ranging and varied exercises enable the student to master each grammar point thoroughly.

Features include:

• Clear grammatical explanations with examples in both English and German

• Authentic language samples from a range of media

• Checklists at the end of each unit to reinforce key points

• Cross-referencing to other grammar chapters

• Full exercise answer key

• 'Did you know?' sections with extra learning tips on specific grammar points and insights into current usage of German

• Glossary of grammatical terms

The new edition has been thoroughly revised, including more varied exercises for practice, and grammar points have been reformulated to use a more learner-centred approach.

Suitable for independent study and for class use, Basic German: A Grammar and Workbook is the ideal reference and practice book for beginners, as well as for students with some knowledge of the language.

Unit 1
What’s different in German?

Basic tips and patterns

Learning German is often perceived as difficult. In 1880, Mark Twain famously dubbed it ‘the awful German language’, protesting, ‘Surely there is not another language that is so slipshod and systemless, and so slippery and elusive to the grasp’ (Mark Twain, ‘The awful German language’, The Tramp Abroad, 1880 (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1997), pp. 390–402).

But is this really the case? One thing that is very helpful in learning German is that it is a systematic language which follows rules. There are many ways to make these rules easier to learn, and there are quite a few tips which will help you in learning the language.

If you approach the language step by step, you will find that it is much easier than you may think at the beginning. Here are pointers to some basic principles where German is different from English, and which may be useful before you start out with the grammar proper.

Spelling – capital letters and different characters

There are a few ways in which German spelling is different from English.

Capital letters for nouns

German is one of the few languages which uses capital letters not only at the beginning of sentences but also within sentences. In English, this applies only to proper names, to the personal pronoun ‘I’ and to personifications, such as ‘Love’.

In German, all nouns must always be written with a capital letter, regardless of whether they are at the beginning of a sentence or in the middle:

• Am Wochenende gehen der Mann und die Frau zu einem Yogakurs.
• At the weekend the man and the woman go to a yoga course.

Note that the pronoun ich (‘I’) has no initial capital in German, but Sie (formal form of ‘you’) does.

Different characters

The German alphabet has some characters which do not exist in the English alphabet:

ß – the sharp ‘s’

The letter ß, called eszett in German, is pronounced like the English ‘s’ in ‘sun’ or ‘basic’, for example.

German uses this letter, for instance, after ei and ie, and after a, o and u if they are pronounced long:

heißen	to be called
Straße	street
groß	big

The umlauts – ä, ö, ü

These are very important. They change the pronunciation of a word and, more important, its meaning:

• Mutter means ‘mother’, but Mütter is the plural form and means ‘mothers’.
• Musste means ‘had to’, but müsste means ‘should’ or ‘ought to’.

Three genders

All nouns in German are masculine, feminine or neuter. This shows in their singular article: der for masculine, die for feminine, das for neuter.

It is important to realise that gender in German is grammatical, not ‘biological’ as it is in English. This means that objects, concepts etc. which are neuter (‘it’) in English can be masculine, feminine or neuter in German:

der Tisch	the table (masculine)
die Tür	the door (feminine)
das Fenster	the window (neuter)

Whenever you learn a new noun, always learn it with its gender: the best way to do this is to learn it with its article. You will find that this will pay off in the long term.

Endings

One of the principal differences between English and German is that, in German, words take specific endings depending on their relationship to other parts of the sentence. This applies to verbs, articles, possessive adjectives and adjectives.

Verbs

These are words describing the ‘action’ of a sentence, such as ‘to run’, ‘to think’. For example the German verb ‘to go’ has different endings when used with ‘I’, ‘he’ and ‘they’:

Ich gehe.	I go.
Er geht.	He goes.
Sie gehen.	They go.

Articles and possessive adjectives

These are words linked to a noun such as ‘a’, ‘the’, ‘my’ or ‘his’. For example the indefinite article meaning ‘a’ changes in German when it is linked to the subject of the sentence (ein Mann) or the object of the sentence (einen Mann):

Ist das ein Mann?	Is that a man?
Da drüben sehe ich ein en Mann.	I can see a man over there.

Adjectives

These words, which describe the quality of a noun, such as a ‘new’ laptop, an ‘intelligent’ woman or a ‘beautiful’ house, follow a similar pattern when they appear in front of a noun. In German, adjectives can have different endings when they are linked to a masculine noun (ein neuer Laptop), a feminine noun (eine intelligente Frau) or a neuter noun (ein schönes Haus).

Cases

One of the most important features of German is that you can tell what function a noun performs in a sentence by the ending of the word that accompanies the noun. That word shows its case. For example a noun can be the subject of the sentence, i.e. the ‘agent’ of what is happening:

Der Hund beißt den Mann.

The dog bites the man.

Or it can be the object, i.e. the ‘receiver’ of the action in the sentence:

Der Hund beißt den Mann.

The dog bites the man.

The subject and the object are in different cases, which means that the article (‘the’) has a different ending. Both ‘dog’ and ‘man’ are masculine (der), but in the second sentence, ‘the dog’ is the subject (der Hund) and the man is the object (den Mann).

Word order

One of the most important features in German word order is the position of the verb. In most statements the verb is the second element:

Er hat zwei Brüder.	He has two brothers.
Morgen fahre ich nach Paris.	Tomorrow I’m going to Paris.

However, the verb is at the beginning in commands and many questions:

Öffnen Sie das Fenster!	Open the window, please.
Hast du ein Tablet?	Do you have a tablet?

In more complex structures it can also go to the end:

Ich kann morgen nicht kommen, weil ich nach Paris fahre.

I can’t come tomorrow because I’m going to Paris.

Tenses

English tenses differentiate between an action happening at the moment (‘I am working’) a...