German Lessons

Since the French forum has French lessons, I thought maybe we could have German lessons, too. What I've been doing isn't "learning" German; it's half-assing it so I can pass a reading test. Eventually, I'm going to have to be fluent in German, which will probably mean taking classes, but I'd like to go ahead and get started.

Does anyone feel up to teaching me and anyone else who would like to learn? If so, I'll let you choose where to start, though it seems to me that cases and syntax is the most obvious place.

Okay, I would like to teach you guys. I'm not sure though I can explain cases so well. For me it's just natural to use them. But I could look online or at our local library for teaching material of any kind.

I have a "SparkChart" of German grammar, and here's what it says about cases:

Nominative: Articles in the nominative are der (m), die (f), das (n), die (pl). Use the nominative for subjects (the person, place or thing performing the action), predicate nominatives (nouns that don't do anything but refer to the subject of the sentence), nouns of address (ex.: ladies and gentlemen).

Accusative: Articles in the accusative are den (m), die (f), das (n), die (pl). Use the accusative for direct objects (the person or thing acted upon, known, or owned by the subject), nouns following accusative prepositions, expressing temporal relationships, and the expression es gibt (there is/are).

Dative: Articles in the dative are dem (m), der (f), dem (n), den (pl). Use the dative for indirect objects, nouns following dative prepositions, dative verbs, and to indicate personal involvement or reaction.

Genitive: Articles in the genitive are des, -es, -s, -en (m), der (f), des, -es, -s (n), der, -en (pl). Use the genitive for possession, relationships between two nouns, and nouns following genitive pronouns.

Click to expand...

That all makes sense in theory, but using them is quite a different matter, especially since so many of the articles are the same. It gives us a place to start, at least.

okay, I think Genitive is the hardest one, but luckily the less used one these days (people, especiallynot well-educated people, tend to replace it with Dative)
Maybe we should start wih typical sentences for each case?

I'm gonna be your assistant teacher, Social ;-) The cases are not too difficult, especially the Genitive it's quite similar to English. I've tried to explain the cases to an English friend of mine and I hope that it'll help you too...You might want to try to start the way we learn the cases in German. We learned to ask questions for every sentence:

Wer oder was? = Nominativ
Wessen? = Genitiv
Wem? = Dativ
Wen oder was? = Wen oder was?

You have to get the subject as the answer to the question.

The Nominative is the most common one in German.

KC: Let me make sure I understand. If you turn a sentence into a question and use wer or was to ask it, then the subject is in the nominative case?

(Feel free to smack me if I'm being dumb.)

Okay, let's try this. The only way to do it is to do it, right?

Ich bin [trying - what the heck is German for "trying?"] gelehrt Deusch. Ich bin sehr schlecht in ihr. Bitte nicht lauchen [at; can't find the right for for this one, either] mich.

So. How much did that suck?

For your first ry not that bad. Correctly it would've been:
Ich versuche Deutsch zu lernen. Ich bin darin sehr schlecht (oh come on, give yourself some credit). Bitte lacht nicht über mich.

Okay, maybe we should start with syntax. You tend to just use English sentence structures and replace the words. Sadly it's not that simple (believe me; it took me ages to figure out where 'please' went in a sentence)

Yep, I knew syntax would be an issue. Let's start with simple sentences. In English, we have subject-verb-whatever else. I see from my SparkChart (handy little thing) that word order is dependant upon the position of the verb, which is always the second grammatical unit (which is weird, because I've also heard that the verb comes at the end of the sentence). That doesn't make much sense to me.

the verb (or modal verb) is at the end of the sentence after relative clauses that start with '...,weil' or something like that.
Simple sentences are easy, really. We use the same SPO structure (Subjekt, Predikat, Objekt) as in English.
For example. I go to school -> Ich gehe zur Schule.

Blondie Bear said:

Okay, let's try this. The only way to do it is to do it, right?

Ich bin [trying - what the heck is German for "trying?"] gelehrt Deusch. Ich bin sehr schlecht in ihr. Bitte nicht lauchen [at; can't find the right for for this one, either] mich.

So. How much did that suck?

Click to expand...

Okay, I get what you are trying to say, but you should rather say: Ich versuche Deutsch zu lernen. (I am trying to learn German). The sentence structure in German is S P O (subject predicate object). You cannot translate word by word here. This is because in German you often just use the present tense. You tranlasated "am trying" word by word. There is a huge difference in the use of tenses in the two languages. I'm having the same problem with English. I want to use the simple present all the time*lol*.
Okay, the next sentence would be "Ich bin sehr schlecht darin." There are some things you can't just learn with the help of rules, especially the sentence structure and idioms and prepositions. What I did and still do, is watching Tv shows and movies in English and it really helps you, because you actually have to learn so many rules if you want to speak in a very good way. There is no time to think about all the rules of how to form a sentence before you speak. That#s why it should come naturally, you know?

The last sentence would be: "Bitte nicht über mich lachen!" Again, prepositions are hard to learn in every language and practice is the best way to use them right.

But all in all in was actually pretty good. I totally understood what you wanted to say and you were using different sentence types whih is awesome, I think. And the rest will come with practice...

Ich bin dumm.

Sigh.

Nein, bist du nicht!

It's kind of overwhelming, how much I'm going to have to learn all at the same time.

Looking at it, though, the syntax seems sort of like Old and Middle English's was. For example, KC, your last comment, translated literally, is "No, be you not!" which is still correct in English, but archaic. Maybe I should start thinking of it that way.

Edit:

kitty-cat said:

This is because in German you often just use the present tense. You tranlasated "am trying" word by word.

Click to expand...

For clarification's sake: if I'm in present tense, there's no "to be" verb? Like in English we'd say "am learning," but in German you just say "learn"?

If this helps you, yes. I don't know much about Old and Middle English but it would definitly make sence since both languages derived from Germanic dialects...

You're correct about the present tense in German.

Yay me! I learned something!

Okay, so we have present simple sentences pretty much down. What about simple past? Is there anything special I need to know about past tense? In English we have, for example, "did" and "have done"; is the German like the present and only have "did"?

we have two past tenses we use for normal sentences
Like 'I saw a dog.'
You could either say 'Ich sah einen Hund.' or 'I habe einen Hund gesehen.'
I don't really know the difference, but the second one sounds better in this context. I'd have to look up the grammatical rules for that one.

It looks to me like the first one is (roughly) "I saw a dog" and the second one is "I have seen a dog." Generally (at least in English), they're pretty much the same. I think the difference is in intent. But go ahead and look it up to make sure I'm not talking out of my butt.

okay, I tried looking it up. In German both mean the same (so nothing about intention) it's just that you use the first one more in written language than German (or when telling a story). And maybe it's just me, but I feel like the second one is a lot more common these days and starting to replace the first one.

"Ich sah einen Hund" is Präteritum, while "Ich habe einen Hund gesehen" is Perfekt. Präteritum is barely used in German nowadays, only in written as Social said...