German Grammar

Introduction

 

German (Deutsch) is a West Germanic language and derives most of its vocabulary from the Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family. A number of words are derived from Latin and Greek, and fewer from French and English. Widely spoken languages which are most similar to German include Luxembourgish, Yiddish, Dutch, the Frisian languages, the Scandinavian languages and English.

German is written using the Latin alphabet. In addition to the 26 standard letters, German has three vowels with umlauts (Ä/ä, Ö/ö, and Ü/ü) and the letter ß (a special kind of "s", called "Eszett" or "scharfes Es"; it originated as a ligature of archaic forms of the letters s and z, which were represented as ſ and ʒ, respectively, that is, ſ + ʒ = ſʒ = ß).

German is spoken natively by about 90 million people, making it the most widely spoken native language in Europe.

German is a pluricentric language, with multiple countries having their own standardised variants (e.g. Austrian German, Swiss Standard German) as well as many dialects. There is also one variant referred to as Standard German.

German is the only official language of Germany, Austria, and Liechtenstein; one of the official languages of Switzerland, Luxembourg and Belgium; and a recognised minor language in many other countries, such as Italy, Slovenia, Hungary, Namibia and Poland.

 

 

Nouns

 

German nouns are always capitalised (for example "the book" is always "das Buch"), and may be created by joining multiple individual words together. (For example, "spy satellite" is "Spionagesatellit" in German.) As in many related Indo-European languages, nouns in German have a grammatical gender: masculine, feminine, or neuter; even words for objects without masculine or feminine characteristics like "bridge" or "rock". They are also declined (change form) depending on their grammatical case (their function in a sentence) and whether they are singular or plural. German has four cases - nominative, accusative, dative and genitive. Masculine and neuter nouns are declined when in the genitive case, and some also in the dative and (less commonly) accusative cases.

German plurals are normally formed by adding -en or -er to the noun. Recent loanwords from English often keep the -s plural ending. Some nouns also change a vowel when in the plural form:

• der Mann ("the man") - die Männer ("the men")

This effect, part of the Germanic umlaut process, was once almost universal in English, but now only survives in some irregular plurals such as "feet" as the plural of "foot" and "mice" as the plural of "mouse".

 

Declension for case

 

For the four cases, nominative, accusative, dative and genitive, the main forms of declension are:

For singular nouns:

• Feminine nouns have the same form in all four cases: die Frau, die Frau, der Frau, der Frau

• Personal names, all neuter and most masculine nouns have genitive case -(e)s endings: normally -es if one syllable long, -s if more. This is related to using 's to show possession in English, e.g. "The boy's book". Traditionally the nouns in this group also add -e in the dative case, but this is now often ignored: der Mann, den Mann, dem Mann(e), des Mann(e)s
 / das Kind, das Kind, dem Kind(e), des Kind(e)s
• The n-nouns take -(e)n for genitive, dative and accusative: this is used for masculine nouns ending with -e and a few others, mostly animate nouns: der Drache, den Drachen, dem Drachen, des Drachen
 / der Prinz, den Prinzen, dem Prinzen, des Prinzen
• A few masculine weak nouns take -(e)n for accusative and dative, and -(e)ns for genitive: der Buchstabe, den Buchstaben, dem Buchstaben, des Buchstaben / der Glaube, den Glauben, dem Glauben, des Glaubens

For plural nouns:

• In the dative case, all nouns which do not already have an -n or -s ending add -n: die Kinder, die Kinder, den Kindern, der Kinder
 / die Frauen, die Frauen, den Frauen, der Frauen

 

General rules of declension

• Given the nominative singular, genitive singular, and nominative plural of a noun, it is possible to determine its declension.
• Note that in all feminine nouns, all singular forms are identical.
• The dative plural of all nouns ends in -n if such an ending does not already exist; except that of nouns that form the plural with -s, which are usually loan words.
• Most nouns do not take declensions in the accusative or dative cases. A small class of mostly masculine nouns called "weak nouns" takes the ending -n or -en in all cases except the nominative.

Dative forms with the ending -e (dem Gotte, dem Manne) are restricted to formal usage, but widely limited to poetic style. Such forms are not commonly found in modern texts, except in fixed expressions (such as im Stande sein - "to be able"). Nevertheless, in the genitive, the ending -es must be used in most monosyllabic words (des Gottes, des Mannes). Only words of more syllables usually add a simple -s (des Königs).

In colloquial usage, moreover, singular inflection of weak masculine nouns may be limited to those ending in -e (der Name, dem Namen). Other nouns of this class are often not inflected. Thus one is very likely to hear dem Spatz, dem Idiot instead of the formally correct dem Spatzen, dem Idioten.

 

Declension classes

Number	Singular				Plural				Example
Case	N	A	D	G	N	A	D	G
Article	der, das, die	den, das, die	dem, dem, der	des, des, der	die	die	den	der
-(e)s, -e	Berg	Berg	Berg(e)	Berg(e)s	Berge	Berge	Bergen	Berge	der Berg, des Berg(e)s, die Berge
-(e)s, -er	Bild	Bild	Bild(e)	Bild(e)s	Bilder	Bilder	Bildern	Bilder	das Bild, des Bild(e)s, die Bilder
-(e)s, -en	Staat	Staat	Staat(e)	Staat(e)s	Staaten	Staaten	Staaten	Staaten	der Staat, des Staat(e)s, die Staaten
-s, -	Fahrer	Fahrer	Fahrer	Fahrers	Fahrer	Fahrer	Fahrern	Fahrer	der Fahrer, des Fahrers, die Fahrer
-s, -e	Lehrling	Lehrling	Lehrling	Lehrlings	Lehrlinge	Lehrlinge	Lehrlingen	Lehrlinge	der Lehrling, des Lehrlings, die Lehrlinge
-s, -s	Radio	Radio	Radio	Radios	Radios	Radios	Radios	Radios	das Radio, des Radios, die Radios
-s, -	Computer	Computer	Computer	Computers	Computer	Computer	Computern	Computer	der Computer, des Computers, die Computer
-en, -en	Student	Studenten	Studenten	Studenten	Studenten	Studenten	Studenten	Studenten	der Student, des Studenten, die Studenten
-, -̈	Mutter	Mutter	Mutter	Mutter	Mütter	Mütter	Müttern	Mütter	die Mutter, der Mutter, die Mütter
-, -en	Meinung	Meinung	Meinung	Meinung	Meinungen	Meinungen	Meinungen	Meinungen	die Meinung, der Meinung, die Meinungen
-, -̈e	Kraft	Kraft	Kraft	Kraft	Kräfte	Kräfte	Kräften	Kräfte	die Kraft, der Kraft, die Kräfte
-ns, -n	Name	Namen	Namen	Namens	Namen	Namen	Namen	Namen	der Name, des Namens, die Namen

 

Irregular declensions

	Singular	Plural
Nominative	der Herr	die Herren
Accusative	den Herrn	die Herren
Dative	dem Herrn	den Herren
Genitive	des Herrn	der Herren
	Singular	Plural
Nominative	das Herz	die Herzen
Accusative	das Herz	die Herzen
Dative	dem Herz(en)	den Herzen
Genitive	des Herzens	der Herzen

 

Many foreign nouns have irregular plurals, for example:

	Nominative singular	Genitive singular	Nominative plural	Meaning
-s, -en	das Thema	des Themas	die Themen	the theme
-, -en	der Kommunismus	des Kommunismus	(die Kommunismen)	communism
-s, PL	das Thema	des Themas	die Themata	the theme
-, PL	der Uterus	des Uterus	die Uteri	the uterus

 

Orthography

 

All German nouns are capitalized. This applies even to infinitives used as nouns. It should be noted that in German there is a technical distinction, one that is not widely known even among native speakers, between Substantive and Nomen. The former are noncomparable nouns to be used with an article, are capitalized, while the latter class, which includes adjectives, may not be.

For compound nouns (such as Apfelbaum) only capitalize the beginning (Apfel) and not the second word (Baum) or any following words:
 Farbfernsehgerät - ("color television set").

 

Compounds

 

German allows the composition of nominal stems into tatpurusha compounds, in effectively unlimited numbers, as in Rinderkennzeichnungs- und Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz (the name of an actual law passed in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern in 1999), and Donaudampfschiffahrtselektrizitätenhauptbetriebswerkbauunterbeamtengesellschaft (a constructed example used to illustrate the principle; it is derived from the name of the real Donaudampfschiffahrtsgesellschaft, the "Danube Steamboat Shipping Company", 1829).

This works similar to English apposition, but the German compound is used as a single word: "spy satellite" equals Spionagesatellit and "mad cow syndrome" equals Rinderwahnsinn.

In addition, there is the grammatical feature of the Fugen-s: certain compounds introduce an s between the noun stems, historically marking the genitive case of the first noun, but it occurs frequently after nouns which do not actually take an s in their genitive cases. The s is actually inserted for ease in pronunciation, most of the time. For example: das Verkehrsflugzeug - "airliner" or "commercial aircraft", where without the s, the pronunciation would be difficult.

In many instances, the compound is acceptable both with and without the s, but there are many cases where the s is mandatory and this cannot be deduced from grammatical rules, but rather from the issue of pronunciation e.g. Hochzeitskleid - "wedding dress", Liebeslied - "love song", Abfahrtszeit - "time of departure", Arbeitsamt - "employment agency".

Occurrence of the Fugen-s seems to be correlated to certain suffixes (of the first stem), words in -tum, -ling, -ion, -tät, -heit, -keit, -schaft, -sicht, -ung and nominalized infinitives in -en mostly do take the s, while feminine words in -ion, -tät, -heit, -keit, -schaft, -sicht, -ung mostly do not, but there are exceptions. Use of the s is mostly optional in compounds in which the second element is a participle.

 

Common false friends

 

As in English, some nouns (mass nouns) only have a singular form; other nouns only have a plural form:

• das All, der Durst, der Sand ("the Universe", "thirst", "sand")
• die Kosten, die Ferien ("costs", "the holidays")

Traps abound in both directions here: common mass nouns in English are not mass nouns in German, and vice versa:

• die Information ("information": "the piece of information") - die Informationen ("the pieces of information") 
• die Polizei ist (sg.) - "the police are" (pl.)

Again as in English, some words change their meaning when changing their number:

• Geld ("money") - Gelder ("different sources of money")
• Wein ("wine") - die Weine ("different types of wine")

A few words have two different plurals with distinct meanings. For example:

• Wort ("word") - Wörter (isolated words, as in "five words") - Worte (connected, meaningful words, as in "his last words")
• Band, Bande ("bonds") - Bänder ("ribbons")
• Bau, Bauten ("buildings") - Baue ("burrows")

Some words share the singular and can only be distinguished by their genus and sometimes their plural:

• das Gehalt / die Gehälter ("salary") - der Gehalt / die Gehalte ("content")
• das Band / die Bänder ("ribbon") - der Band / die Bände ("bibliographic volume")
• das Teil / die Teile (physical "piece" e.g. from a machine) - der Teil / die Teile (conceptual "part" e.g. from a speech)
• der See / die Seen ("lake") - die See ("sea", no plural form) - die See / die Seen (nautical term for "large wave")

 

 

Verbs

 

German verbs may be classified as either weak, with a dental consonant inflection, or strong, showing a vowel gradation (Ablaut). Both of these are regular systems. Most verbs of both types are regular, though various subgroups and anomalies do arise. The only completely irregular verb in the language is sein (to be). However, textbooks for foreign learners often class all strong verbs as irregular. There are fewer than 200 strong and irregular verbs, and there is a gradual tendency for strong verbs to become weak.

 

Simple infinitives

 

The infinitive consists of the root and the suffix -en. With verbs whose roots end in el or er, the e of the infinitive suffix is dropped.

laufen ("to run")

lächeln ("to smile")

meistern ("to master")

 

German prefixes

 

This is a general view of the most important German prefixes. The example is legen ("to lay"):

Prefix	Verb	Literally	Translation
ab-	legen	to lay down	to lay down to abandon sth.
an-	legen	to lay by/at	to attach sth. to dock
auf-	legen	to lay up	to apply
aus-	legen	to lay out	to lay sth. out
be-	legen	to lay sth. on sth.	to overlay
bei-	legen	to lay at/by	to add
dar-	legen	to lay there	to point sth. out
ein-	legen	to lay in	to inlay
ent-	legen	dis-lay	faraway, outlying NOTE: entlegen is an adjective and not a verb!
er-	legen	to achieve-lay	to kill/ to conclude successfully
ge-	legen	to be laid	seated, situated, opportune NOTE: gelegen is an adjective and not a verb!
hin-	legen	to lay there	to put down
nach-	legen	to lay after	to put some more of sth. on
nieder-	legen	to lay down	to put down an object / to lay down an office / to lie down also: to go to sleep
über-	legen	to lay over	to think about sth.
um-	legen	to lay around/over again	to allocate, also: to kill
unter-	legen	to lay under	to put under
ver-	legen	–	to be shy (adjective) / to lose (verb) to edit (books, newspaper)
vor-	legen	to lay previous to sth.	to bring sth. before so.
weg-	legen	to lay away	to put away
wider-	legen	to lay against	to disprove
zer-	legen	to lay sth. in pieces	to dismantle
zu-	legen	to lay to sth.	to put on / to buy something new
zusammen-	legen	to lay together	to pool sth.

 

Inseparable prefixes

There are some verbs which have a permanent prefix at their beginning. The most common permanent prefixes found in German are ver-, ge-, be-, er-, ent- (or emp-), and zer-.

brauchen ("to need") - verbrauchen ("to consume" or "to use up")

raten ("to advise", "to guess") - verraten ("to betray")

fallen ("to fall") - gefallen ("to be pleasing")

hören ("to hear") - gehören zu ("to belong to")

brennen ("to burn" [intransitive]) - verbrennen ("to burn" [transitive], to burn completely)

beginnen ("to begin", no form without the prefix)

The meaning of the permanent prefixes does not have a real system, the alteration in meaning can be subtle or drastic. The prefixes ver-, be- and ge- have several different meanings, although ge- is uncommon and often the root verb is no longer in existence. Be- often makes a transitive verb from an intransitive verb. Verbs with er- tend to relate to creative processes, verbs with ent- usually describe processes of removing (as well as emp-, an approximate equivalent to ent- except usually used for root verbs beginning with an f), and zer- is used for destructive actions. Ver- often describes some kind of extreme or excess of the root verb, although not in any systematic way: sprechen, for example, means "to speak", but versprechen "to promise" as in "to give ones word"; and fallen, meaning "to fall", but verfallen "to decay" or "to be ruined".

 

Separable prefixes

Many verbs have a separable prefix that changes the meaning of the root verb, but that does not always remain attached to the root verb. German sentence structure normally places verbs in second position or final position. For separable prefix verbs, the prefix always appears in final position. If a particular sentence"s structure places the entire verb in final position then the prefix and root verb appear together. If a sentence places the verb in second position then only the root verb will appear in second position. The separated prefix remains at the end of the sentence.

anfangen ("to start")

1. Root verb in second position: Ich fange mit der Arbeit an. ("I start the work.")

2. Root verb in final position: Morgens trinke ich Schokolade, weil ich dann mit der Arbeit anfange. ("In the mornings I drink hot chocolate, because afterwards I begin the work.")

 

A small number of verbs have a prefix that is separable in some uses and inseparable in others:

umfahren

1. ("to crash into sth.") - stress on um

Ich fahre das Verkehrszeichen um. ("I drive against the traffic sign, knocking it over [um] in the process.")

2. ("to drive around") - stress on fahren

Ich umfahre das Verkehrszeichen. ("I drive around the traffic sign.")

 

If one of the two meanings is figurative, the inseparable version stands for this figurative meaning:

übersetzen

1. Literal ("to ferry") - stress on über

Ich setze morgen auf die Insel über. ("I'll ferry over to the island tomorrow.")

2. Figurative ("to translate") - stress on setzen

Ich übersetze die Geschichte morgen. ("I'll translate the story tomorrow.")

 

Complex infinitives

 

Components and word order

Complex infinitives can be built, consisting of more than the original infinitive. They include objects, predicative nouns and adverbial information. These are packed before the original infinitive, if used isolated.

If you want to express that you suddenly see a bird (not an airplane):

NOT einen Vogel am Himmel plötzlich sehen ("suddenly see a bird in the sky" as opposed to seeing it slowly) - plötzlich is stressed

BUT plötzlich einen Vogel am Himmel sehen ("suddenly see a bird in the sky" as opposed to seeing a plane) - Vogel is stressed

Both sentences are correct but they have different focus.

 

Pronoun objects are usually mentioned before nominal phrase objects, dative nominal objects before accusative nominal objects, and accusative pronoun objects before dative pronouns. Order may change upon emphasis on the object, the first being more important. This can be viewed as a table:

 

Usual object order

Type	Order	Case
Pronoun	1	Accusative
Pronoun	2	Dative
Nominal	3	Dative
Nominal	4	Accusative

 

normal

Ich gebe meinem Vater das Geld. ("I give my father the money.")

Ich gebe es ihm. ("I give it to him.")

Ich gebe ihm das Geld. ("I give him the money.")

Ich gebe es meinem Vater. ("I give it to my father.")

unusual

Ich gebe das Geld meinem Vater. ("I give the money to my father.")

Ich gebe das Geld ihm. ("I give the money to him.")

very strange (but still correct)

Ich gebe ihm es. ("I give him it.")

Ich gebe meinem Vater es. ("I give my father it.")

 

Native adverbs, like nicht, leider or gerne, are placed before the innermost verb (see Compound infinitives).

 

Predicative nouns and predicative adjectives

A predicative adjective can be the positive, comparative or superlative stem of an adjective, therefore it has the same form as the adverb. One might also use positional phrases or pronominal adverbs.

 

rot sein ("be red")

bekannt werden ("become well-known")

im Rathaus sein ("be in the town hall")

 

A predicative noun is a nominal phrase in the nominative case.

Ein Arzt sein ("be a doctor")

 

Note that, if the subject is singular, the predicative noun must not be plural.

Der Schwarm ist eine Plage. [singular/singular] ("The swarm is a pest.")

Die Bienen sind Insekten. [plural/plural] ("The bees are insects.")

Die Bienen sind der Schwarm. [plural/singular] ("The bees are the swarm.")

Der Schwarm ist die Bienen. [singular/plural], but instead

Der Schwarm ist ein Haufen Bienen. ("The swarm is a load of bees."), or

Die Bienen sind der Schwarm ("The bees are the swarm.") [inversion]

 

3rd person pronouns are handled like any nominal phrase when used in a predicative way.

1st person or 2nd person pronouns are never used as predicative pronouns.

Normally, one makes an inversion when using a definite pronoun as predicativum.

Der bin ich. [Ich bin der.] ("I'm the one.")

Der bist du. [Du bist der.] ("You're the one.")

Der ist es. [Es ist der.] ("He's the one.")

 

Adverbs

One can use any kind of adverbial phrase or native adverb mentioned above. But beware of modal verbs, they change the meaning and phrase of the sentence.

 

Compound infinitives

Compound infinitives can be constructed by the usage of modal verbs or auxiliary verbs. One places a new infinitive behind the main infinitive. Then this outer infinitive will be conjugated instead of the old inner infinitive. Sometimes one must turn the old infinitive into a passive participle.

 

Passive infinitive

There are two types of passive forms: static passive and dynamic passive. They differ by their auxiliary words. The static passive uses sein, the dynamic passive is formed with werden (which has a slightly different conjugation from its siblings). In both cases, the old infinitive is turned into its passive participle form.

sehen – gesehen sein – gesehen werden ("see – be seen")

plötzlich am Himmel gesehen sein/werden ("suddenly be seen in the sky")

 

Note that a complex infinitive cannot be turned into passive form, with an accusative object, for obvious reasons. This restriction does not hold for dative objects.

mir den Schlüssel geben ("to give me the key")

NOT mir den Schlüssel gegeben werden

mir gegeben werden ("have been given to me")

 

The only exceptions are verbs with two accusative objects. In older forms of German, one of these accusative objects was a dative object. This dative object is removed, whereas the real accusative object stays.

Die Schüler die Vokabeln abfragen ("test the students on their vocab")

NOT Die Schüler abgefragt werden

Die Vokabeln abgefragt werden ("the vocab be tested")

 

Perfect infinitives

The perfect infinitive is constructed by turning the old infinitive into the passive participle form and attaching the auxiliary verbs haben or sein after the verb.

• sehen – gesehen haben [transitive] ("see" - "saw/have seen")
• einen Vogel sehen – einen Vogel gesehen haben [transitive] ("see a bird " - "saw/have seen a bird")
• laufen – gelaufen sein [intransitive] ("walk" - "walked/have walked")
• einen schnellen Schritt laufen – einen schnellen Schritt gelaufen sein/haben ("walk at a fast pace" - "walked/have walked at a fast pace")

Note that the perfect infinitive of an intransitive verb is created the same way as the static passive infinitive of a transitive verb.

One can also build perfect infinitives of passive infinitives, both static and dynamic. Since the passive is intransitive, having no accusative object, one must use the auxiliary sein:

• sehen ("to see")
• gesehen worden sein ("to have been seen")
• gesehen geworden sein ("to have been being seen")

sein is used as an auxiliary verb, when the verb is:

• intransitive
• indicates a movement from one place to another
• describes the alteration of a state

haben is used, when

• actually any other case, but could be described more specifically

The use of haben and sein may depend on a sentence's meaning. Ich habe das Auto gefahren ("I have driven the car") is transitive and takes haben, but Ich bin nach Deutschland gefahren ("I have driven to Germany") is intransitive and takes sein because of the position change, even though the verb fahren is identical.

 

Future infinitives

The future infinitive is more theoretical, because this infinite is only used in finite form. One keeps the old infinitive and appends the verb werden, which in the present tense means "to become":

nach Italien fahren – nach Italien fahren werden ("to drive to Italy" – "to be about to drive to Italy")

The future infinitive can also be built by a perfect infinitive, which is used in the future perfect:

den Baum gefällt haben – den Baum gefällt haben werden ("to have felled the tree" – "to be about to have felled the tree")

 

Infinitives with modal verbs

Modal verbs are verbs that modify other verbs, and as such, are never found alone. Examples may include the following: "may", "must", "should", "want", or "can". Such verbs are utilized by placing the modal infinitive behind the old (passive or perfect) infinitive, without changing any other word. Some modal verbs in German are: können, dürfen, müssen, brauchen, wollen, mögen, lassen.

dorthin fahren können ("to be able to drive there")

nach Rom fahren lassen ("let someone drive to Rome")

A common misunderstanding among English-speakers learning German is caused by a divergence in meaning between English "must" and German müssen.

Ich muss - "I must"

Ich muss nicht - "I don't have to"

 

Accusativus cum infinitivo

Similar to Latin, there is an accusative and infinitive (ACI) construction possible. To construct it, one places a certain infinitive behind the last infinitive, then adds an accusative object before the inner complex infinitive. This can be done in two ways:

• Simple ACI (Subject - Verb - Object - Infinitive): Ich sehe dich stolzieren. ("I see you strutting.")
• Complex ACI (Subject - Verb - Object - Compound infinitive): Ich lasse dich ein Haus bauen. ("I let you build a house.")

 

The Infinitive with zu

The infinitive with zu has nothing to do with the gerundive, although it is created in a similar way. One simply puts the word zu before the infinitive, perhaps before the permanent prefix, but after the separable prefix.

zu lesen ("to read") - Ich lerne zu lesen. ("I learn to read.")

zu verlassen ("to leave") - Ich habe beschlossen, dich zu verlassen. ("I've decided to leave you.")

wegzuwerfen ("to throw away") - Ich habe beschlossen, das Buch wegzuwerfen. ("I've decided to throw away the book.")

 

The infinitive with zu extended with um expresses purpose (in order to...). The subject of the main clause and the verb in the infinitive must be identical.

Ich habe ein Meer überquert, um dich zu treffen. ("I have crossed an ocean to meet you.")

 

Conjugation

 

There are three persons, two numbers and four moods (indicative, conditional, imperative and subjunctive) to consider in conjugation. There are six tenses in German: the present and past are conjugated, and there are four compound tenses. There are two categories of verbs in German: weak and strong. Some grammars use the term mixed verbs to refer to weak verbs with irregularities.

Below, the weak verb kaufen ("to buy") and the strong verb singen ("to sing") are conjugated:

 

	Weak verbs		Strong verbs
	Present	Past	Present	Past
ich	kaufe	kaufte	singe	sang
du	kaufst	kauftest	singst	sangst
er	kauft	kaufte	singt	sang
wir	kaufen	kauften	singen	sangen
ihr	kauft	kauftet	singt	sangt
sie	kaufen	kauften	singen	sangen

 

Conditional endings (except for sein "to be")

• All tenses and verbs: -e, -est, -t, -en, -et, -en

sein "to be" is irregular in the conditional mood

• Present conditional: sei, seist, sei, seien, sei(e)t, seien
• Past conditional: wäre, wärst, wäre, wären, wär(e)t, wären

The (e)s are inserted when the stem of the verb ends in:

-chn -d, -dn, -fn, -gn, -t, -tm

The second person singular ending is -t for verbs whose stems end in:

-s, -ß, -x, -z

 

Examples

beten ("to pray"): weak transitive verb

• Past Participle: gebetet
• Present: bete, betest, betet, beten, betet, beten
• Past: betete, betetest, betete, beteten, betetet, beteten

singen ("to sing"): strong transitive verb

• Past Participle: gesungen
• Present: singe, singst, singt, singen, singt, singen
• Past: sang, sangst, sang, sangen, sangt, sangen

Some strong verbs change their stem vowel in the second and third person singular of the indicative mood of the present tense.

lesen ("to read"): strong transitive verb

• Past Participle: gelesen
• Present: lese, liest, liest, lesen, lest, lesen
• Past: las, last, las, lasen, last, lasen

The other tenses are described in the Sentences section, because they include construction of sentences.

 

Auxiliary verbs

werden ("to become") [strong]

	Present	Past
ich	werde	wurde
du	wirst	wurdest
er	wird	wurde
wir	werden	wurden
ihr	werdet	wurdet
sie	werden	wurden

Past participle: geworden

 

haben ("to have") [mixed]

Compare the archaic English conjugation:

	Present	Past		Present	Past
ich	habe	hatte	I	have	had
du	hast	hattest	thou	hast	hadst
er	hat	hatte	he	hath	had
wir	haben	hatten	we	have	had
ihr	habt	hattet	ye	have	had
sie	haben	hatten	they	have	had

Past participle: gehabt

 

sein ("to be") [strong]

	Present	Past
ich	bin	war
du	bist	warst
er	ist	war
wir	sind	waren
ihr	seid	wart
sie	sind	waren

Past participle: gewesen

 

Modal verbs

• müssen ("to be required", "must")
• sollen ("to be supposed to", "should")
• wollen ("to want" [with resolve])
• mögen ("to like")
• können ("to be able", "can", "to be possible")
• dürfen ("to be allowed", "may")

 

Modal verbs are inflected irregularly. In the present tense, they use the preterite endings of the strong verbs. In the past tense, they use the preterite endings of the weak verbs. In addition, most modal verbs have a change of vowel in the singular.

 

müssen

sollen

wollen

mögen

können

dürfen

Present

Past

Present

Past

Present

Past

Present

Past

Present

Past

Present

Past

ich

muss

musste

soll

sollte

will

wollte

mag

mochte

kann

konnte

darf

durfte

du

musst

musstest

sollst

solltest

willst

wolltest

magst

mochtest

kannst

konntest

darfst

durftest

er

muss

musste

soll

sollte

will

wollte

mag

mochte

kann

konnte

darf

durfte

wir

müssen

mussten

sollen

sollten

wollen

wollten

mögen

mochten

können

konnten

dürfen

durften

ihr

müsst

musstet

sollt

solltet

wollt

wolltet

mögt

mochtet

könnt

konntet

dürft

durftet

sie

müssen

mussten

sollen

sollten

wollen

wollten

mögen

mochten

können

konnten

dürfen

durften

 

When a modal verb is in use, the main verb is moved to the end of the sentence.

For example:

• Ich kann das Auto fahren. ("I can drive the car.")
• Ich soll die Karten kaufen. ("I"m supposed to buy the cards.")
• Er muss der Mutter danken. ("He must thank the mother.") Note: danken is a dative verb which is why die Mutter becomes der Mutter.

 

Dative verbs

Some verbs are dative verbs. When used, these verbs change the case of the direct object to dative. Many have in common that they change the direct object. Dative verbs include (but are not limited to):

antworten

danken

folgen

geben

gefallen

glauben

gratulieren

helfen

passen

vertrauen

verzeihen

 

Reflexive verbs

Some verbs require the use of a reflexive pronoun. These verbs are known as reflexive verbs. In English, these are often slightly modified versions of non-reflexive verbs, such as "to sit oneself down".

 

Imperative conjugation

There is an imperative for second person singular and second person plural, as well as for first person plural and second person formal.

The endings for second person singular informal are: -(e), -el or -le, and -er(e).

The endings for second person plural informal are: -(e)t, -elt, and -ert.

Fahren (wir/Sie)! – Fahr(e)! – Fahrt!

The imperative of first person plural and second person formal is identical to the infinitive.

This subtopic is strongly related to the construction of German sentences.

 

Verbal nouns and verbal adjectives

 

This section details the construction of verbal nouns and verbal adjectives from the main infinitive. The processes are the same both for simple and complex infinitives. For complex infinitives, adverbial phrases and object phrases are ignored, they do not affect this process, except something else is mentioned.

 

Past participle

There are some irregularities when creating the past participle form.

 

Weak verbs form their past participles with ge- plus the third person singular form of the verb.

• fragen (er fragt) - gefragt
• passen (es passt) - gepasst
• antworten (er antwortet) - geantwortet
• hören (er hört) - gehört
• fühlen (er fühlt) - gefühlt

Verbs with non-initial stress (practically always the result of an unstressed inseparable prefix, or foreign words ending in stressed -ieren or -eien) do not have ge- added to the verb.

• verführen (er verführt) - verführt
• miauen (er miaut) - miaut
• probieren (er probiert) - probiert
• prophezeien (er prophezeit) - prophezeit

For irregular verbs, the infinitive ending -en remains.

• gelaufen
• gegeben
• gegangen
• geworfen

The separable prefix remains in place.

• weggetragen
• umverteilt

 

NOTE Ich habe den Baum umgefahren. ("I drove over – crashed into – the tree.")

NOTE Ich habe den Baum umfahren. ("I drove around the tree.")

 

The past participles of modal and auxiliary verbs have the same form as their infinitives. But if these verbs are used alone, without an infinitive, they have a regular participle.

Ich habe den Chef besuchen dürfen. ("I was allowed to see the boss.")

Ich habe zum Chef gedurft. [unusual] ("I was allowed in to the boss.")

 

Present participle

To create the basic form of a present participle, you attach the suffix -d to the infinitive of the verb.

laufen – laufend ("walk" – "walking")

töpfern – töpfernd ("make pottery" – "making pottery")

lächeln – lächelnd ("smile" – "smiling")

verraten – verratend ("betray" – "betraying")

aufbauen – aufbauend ("establish" – "establishing")

 

Future participle or gerundive

A gerundive-like construction is fairly complicated to use. The basic form is created by putting the word zu before the infinitive. This is also the adverb.

zu suchen ("to be looked for") - Der Schlüssel ist zu suchen. ("The key needs to be looked for.")

zu verzeichnen ("to be recorded") - Ein Trend ist zu verzeichnen. ("A trend is to be recorded.")

 

The adjective is more complicated. Instead of the infinitive, one uses the present participle, and then declines it corresponding to gender, number, case and article of the nominal phrase.

Der zu suchende Schlüssel. ("The key to be looked for.")

Ein zu lüftendes Geheimnis. ("A secret to be revealed.")

 

Agent nouns

Agent nouns (e.g. "photographer" from "photograph" in English) are constructed by taking the infinitive, removing the ending and replacing it by -er, -ler or -er(er). If the person is a woman, the endings have an extra -in on them. Note that in the feminine form a second syllable er is omitted, if the infinitive ends on ern or eren.

• infinitive: fahren ("to drive")
  • agent noun, masculine: Der Fahrer ("the [male] driver")
  • agent noun, feminine: Die Fahrerin ("the [female] driver")

• infinitive: tischlern ("to join [carpentry])"
  • agent noun, masculine: Der Tischler ("the [male] joiner")
  • agent noun, feminine: Die Tischlerin ("the [female] joiner")

• infinitive: verweigern ("to refuse")
  • agent noun, masculine: Der Verweigerer ("the [male] refuser")
  • agent noun, feminine: Die Verweigerin ("the [female] refuser")

This form is hard to build for complex infinitives, therefore it is unusual:

• infinitive: weggehen ("to go away")

does not usually become der Weggeher or die Weggeherin, but instead Derjenige, der weggeht ("the one going away")

or even

• infinitive: schnell zum Flughafen fahren um die Maschine noch zu erwischen ("to quickly drive to the airport to just catch the flight")

does not usually become: Der Schnell-zum-Flughafen-um-die-Maschine-noch-zu-erwischen-Fahrer ("the quickly-driving-to-the-airport-to-catch-the-flight-driver")

On the other hand, this form is often used in fun or mocking expressions, because the imputed behaviour that is content of the mocking can be merged into a single word. An examples is: Toiletten-Tief-Taucher ("toilet deep diver", which is an alliteration in German). A whole range of these expressions aim at supposedly weak or conformist behaviour, such as Ampel-bei-Rot-Stehenbleiber ("traffic-lights-on-red-stopper"), Warmduscher ("warm-showerer"), Unterhosen-Wechsler ("underpants changer"), or Schattenparker ("in the shadow parker"). Especially among children there are several fixed terms of this type, like Spielverderber ("game spoiler").

 

Gerund

 

The normal gerund noun is generally the same word as the infinitive. The gerund does not have a plural (normally – but if so, the form would be unchanged), and its gender is neuter.

arbeiten – das Arbeiten ("to work" – "working")

NOTE die Arbeiten is not the feminine plural of the gerund Arbeiten, it is the plural of Die Arbeit.

 

Example for the plural

"Das Verlegen" kann verschiedene Bedeutungen haben: Das Verlegen einer Sache (die man dann nicht mehr findet), das Verlegen eines Veranstaltungsortes, das Verlegen einer Zeitung, etc.. Diese verschiedenen "Verlegen" sind ein gutes Beispiel für den Plural des Gerunds.

"'Das Verlegen' can have different meanings: The misplacing of a thing (which you won"t find then anymore), the moving of an event location, the editing of a newspaper, etc. These different 'Verlegen' are a good example of the gerund's plural."

 

There is another kind of gerund that (sometimes) implies disapproval of the action. The grammatically dependent implication (i.e. independent of context, speech and syntax) of disapproval for this type of gerund is rather weak, though present. It must be supported either by context or speech. On the other hand, any positive implication from the context or speech will free the gerund from any disapproval. The ending of this form is -erei (-lerei or -[er]ei). Its plural is built with -en, and its gender is feminine.

arbeiten – die Arbeiterei ("to work" – "this silly working")

laufen – die Lauferei ("to run" – "this silly running")

streiten – die Streiterei(en) ("to argue" – "this/these silly argument[s]")

schlemmen – die Schlemmerei(en) ("to feast" – "the feasting[s]")

malen – die Malerei(en) ("to draw" – "this/these silly drawing[s]")

 

The above form means a loose, vague abstractum of the verb's meaning. It is also often used to designate a whole trade, discipline or industry, or a single business/enterprise:

die Meierei – ("a milk-processing enterprise")

malen – die Malerei ("to draw" – "the drawing" [as an artwork], "the discipline of drawing")

In this form the plural is used just as with any other noun. Cf. also Metzgerei, Fleischerei ("butcher's establishment"), Malerei ("a business of professional painters [of rooms and buildings]") which do not spring from verbs.

 

Similar to the form presented above, one may place the prefix ge- (after the separable prefix), if the verb doesn't have a permanent prefix, and then attach the ending -e (-el, -er). Most times, this noun indicates slightly more disapproval as the other one (depending in the same way on context, speech etc.). Its gender is neuter.

fahren – das Gefahre ("to drive" – "silly driving")

laufen – das Gelaufe ("running" – "silly running")

 

A plural form does not exist. To indicate the reference to all instances the pronoun/numeral all can be added, as in the following example:

• Mother to child: Hör mit dem Geschaukel auf! ("Stop that rocking!")
• Child rocks in a different manner
• Mother: Hör mit allem Geschaukel auf! ("Stop all rockings!")

However, a more formal reference to all instances would be "Hör mit jeder Form von Geschaukel auf!" ("Stop any form of rocking.") instead. So this use of all is merely encountered in colloquial conversations.

If this form of gerund is used to express disapproval, it is typically augmented by the prefix herum- or (short form) rum- to make it sound/look even more disapproving. For example: Das stundenlange Herumgefahre im Bus geht mir total auf die Nerven. ("The silly driving around for hours in the bus is totally getting on my nerves.")

These forms are hard to build for complex infinitives, therefore they are unusual. When they occur, all object phrases and adverbial phrases are put before the gerund noun:

von Allen gesehen werden – Das Von-Allen-gesehen-Werden ("to be seen by everyone" – "being seen by everyone")

 

Tenses

 

Although there are six tenses in German, only two are simple, the others are compound and therefore build on the simple constructions. The tenses are quite similar to English constructions.

Conjugation includes three persons, two numbers (singular and plural), three moods (indicative, imperative and subjunctive), and two tenses (present and preterite). The subjunctive of the present is almost never used in colloquial German (and relatively unfrequent in written German as well), the subjunctive of the past is more common, at least for some frequent verbs (ich wäre, ich hätte, ich käme etc.). The latter is used like a conditional mood in German (English: "I would").

 

English native speakers should note that German tenses do not carry aspect information. There are no progressive tenses in standard German. Das Mädchen geht zur Schule may mean "The girl goes to school" as well as "The girl is going to school". One must use an adverb to make a visible difference aside from the context. In spoken German, there do exist progressive tenses, formed with the verb sein ("to be") + am ("at the") + verbal noun. For example: Ich bin am Essen ("I am eating"), Ich bin das Auto am Reparieren ("I'm fixing the car"). However, these forms are rarely used in written and not used in formal spoken German (and are never obligatory in the colloquial either).

 

A second kind of progressive tense is formed with the verb sein ("to be") + present participle, and is the literal translation of the English progressive tense (for present and past). For example: Ich bin/war essend ("I am/was eating"), Ich bin/war das Auto reparierend ("I am/was fixing the car). In contrast to the former one, this progressive tense is a formal correct part of standard German, but, however, very uncommon in spoken as well as in written, in colloquial as well as in formal German – thus very uncommon at all. If used, it often may appear unwieldy or unnatural, except for specific usual cases. This form also differs from the other German tenses in that it has a very unambiguous progressive aspect.

 

As is shown in the following, German is not very rigid in its usage of tenses. More precise tenses are available to express certain temporal nuances, but the two most common tenses (present tense and perfect tense) can often be used instead if the context is unambiguous.

 

• Present (Präsens): It is the present-conjugated form of the infinitive. It is the most important tense in German. The Present tense is mainly used for simple present, present progressive, as well as for future. It is also used for historical past. Example: Ich kaufe das Auto. ("I buy the car.")


 

• Preterite (Präteritum): It is the past-conjugated form of the infinitive. This past tense is mainly used in written German and formal speech, except for some frequent verbs whose preterite forms are common colloquially (such as ich war, ich hatte, ich kam). It is also used for past progressive. Otherwise the perfect is much preferred in the colloquial. Example: Ich kaufte das Auto. ("I bought the car.")


 

• Perfect (Perfekt): It is the present-conjugated form of the perfect infinitive. This tense has (widely) the same meaning as the preterite, and very often replaces the latter in colloquial German. An English perfect tense is often expressed by the present in German. For example: Ich lebe jetzt seit drei Jahren in Deutschland. ("I have lived in Germany for three years now.") (Literally: "I live now for three years in Germany."), or Ich habe das Auto gekauft. ("I [have] bought the car.")


 

• Pluperfect / past perfect (Plusquamperfekt): It is the past-conjugated form of the perfect infinitive. It can be thought of the perfect form of the Preterite, used to describe what had already happened at a certain point in the past. If the context is unambiguous, the perfect or preterite may be used instead (as in English). Example: Ich hatte das Auto gekauft. ("I had bought the car.")


 

• Future (Futur I): It is the present-conjugated form of the future infinitive. It generally describes the future, but also expresses an assumption for the present. In contrast to English, the future tense is usually replaced by the present tense if the future meaning is already evident from the context. For example In zehn Jahren bin ich alt. ("In ten years I'll be old") (Literally: "In ten years am I old."). This is particularly common in colloquial German, but also correct in writing. Example: Ich werde das Auto kaufen. ("I will buy the car.")


 

• Future perfect (Futur II): It is the present-conjugated form of the future infinitive of the perfect infinitive. It describes what will have happened at a certain point in the future (past of the future), but the simple perfect, or even present, is preferred instead if the future meaning is evident from the context. More commonly, the future perfect expresses an assumption for the past: Er wird einen Unfall gehabt haben. ("He will probably have had an accident."). Example: Ich werde das Auto gekauft haben. ("I"ll have bought the car.")


 

Colloquial contractions between verb and personal pronoun

 

Although not part of the standard language, nearly all varieties of colloquial German feature contracted forms in which a verb and a following (unstressed) personal pronoun become one word. This is most frequent in the 2nd person singular, where the verb ending -st and the pronoun du ("you") are contracted into -ste.

bist du - biste ("are you")

hast du - haste ("have you")

glaubst du - glaubste ("believe you", "do you believe")

These forms are not uncommonly seen also in informal writing. Regionally, there may be different outcomes of the contraction. In western Germany, -t- is lost as well, resulting in bisse, hasse and the like. In Upper German regions, the phenomenon often goes so far as to delete the pronoun completely, which gives rise to the Austro-Bavarian bist, hast and the Alemannic bisch, hasch.

 

Similar contractions exist for the formal 2nd person and the 3rd person plural (which both use the pronoun sie/Sie).

können sie - könnse ("can you/she/they")

haben sie - hamse ("have you/she/they")

schauen sie - schaunse ("look you/she/they")

Again, shortened forms such as könn(en)s, hams are used in the South. They are often spelt können's, ham's or können S', ham S' in informal writing.

 

In Upper and Central German regions (but only sporadically in originally Lower German areas), there are also contracted forms for the 1st person plural. These usually end in -mer. The reason for this is that the Upper and Central German dialects have traditionally used mir instead of wir ("we"). This form mir is itself due to an old contraction of the Middle High German verb ending -em and the following pronoun wir (e.g. loufem wir - loufe‿mir)

sind wir - simmer ("are we")

haben wir - hammer ("have we")

glauben wir - glaub(e)mer ("believe we", "do we believe")

In parts of northern Germany, less distinct contractions such as sindwer, hamwer occur instead of the southern/central simmer, hammer.

 

 

Articles

 

German articles are used similarly to the English articles, "a" and "the". However, they are declined differently according to the number, gender, and case of their nouns.

 

Declension

 

The inflected forms depend on the number, the case and the gender of the corresponding noun. Articles have the same plural forms for all three genders.

 

The Indefinite Article

This article, ein-, is used equivalently to the word "a" in English, though it literally means "one". Like its English equivalent (though unlike Italian), it has no direct form for a plural, in this situation a range of alternatives such as einige (some, several) or manche (some) would be used.

 

Indefinite article endings (mixed)

	Masculine	Neuter	Feminine	Plural
Nominative	ein	ein	eine	-eine
Accusative	einen	ein	eine	-eine
Dative	einem	einem	einer	-einen
Genitive	eines	eines	einer	-einer

 

The same endings are used for the negative indefinite article (kein-), and the possessive pronouns, mein- ("my"), dein- ("your", used to a friend), sein- ("his"), ihr- ("her", "their"), unser- ("our"), euer/eur- ("your", if addressing a group), Ihr- ("your", if addressing an authority figure, always capitalised).

 

The Definite Article

This table gives endings for the definite article, equivalent to English "the".

 

Definite article (strong)

	Masculine	Neuter	Feminine	Plural
Nominative	der	das	die	die
Accusative	den	das	die	die
Dative	dem	dem	der	den
Genitive	des	des	der	der

 

The demonstrative pronouns dies-, jen- ("this", "that"; strong) and the relative pronoun welch-, jed- ("which", "every"; strong) take identical endings, which are preceded by -e- if it is not already present.

 

Definite article endings (strong)

	Masculine	Neuter	Feminine	Plural
Nominative	-er	-es	-e	-e
Accusative	-en	-es	-e	-e
Dative	-em	-em	-er	-en
Genitive	-es	-es	-er	-er

 

Note that this is essentially the same as the indefinite article table, but with the masculine nominative -er and the neuter nominative and accusative -es.

 

Possessive "article-like" pronouns

 

Under some circumstances (e.g. in a relative clause) the regular possessive pronouns are replaced by the genitive forms of the pronouns derived from the definite article. English equivalents could be, "The king, whose army Napoleon had defeated..." or "The Himalayas, the highest parts of which were as yet unsurveyed...". They agree in number and gender with the possessor. Unlike other pronouns they carry no strength. Any adjective following them in the phrase will carry the strong endings.

There are possessive pronouns derived from the definite article and derived from the interrogative article. They have the same forms for all cases of the possessed word, but they are only rarely used in the genitive case.

 

Definite possessive ("of the") (mixed)

• Masculine: dessen
• Neuter: dessen
• Feminine: deren
• Plural: deren

 

Interrogative possessive ("of what") (mixed)

• Masculine: wessen
• Neuter: wessen
• Feminine: wessen
• Plural: wessen

NOT: Die Soldaten dessen Armee - CORRECT: Die Soldaten dieser Armee

Up until the 18th century, a genitive noun was often used instead of a possessive pronoun. This is occasionally found in very literary modern German, and sometimes hence used for a facetious effect.

OLD: Des Königs Krone ("The king's crown") - MODERN: Die Krone des Königs - BUT: Die Königskrone (compound noun)

These pronouns are used if using the ordinary possessive pronoun is understood reflexively, or there are several possessors.

 

Genitive and dative cases

 

German articles in the genitive and dative cases directly indicate the actions of owning and giving without needing additional words (indeed, this is their function), which can make German sentences appear confusing to English learners. The gender matches the receiver's gender (not the object's gender) for the dative case, and the owner's gender for the genitive.

• Ich gebe die Karten dem Mann. ("I give the cards to the man.")
• Die Entwicklung unseres Dorfes ("The growth of our village")

 

 

Adjectives

 

German adjectives come before the noun, as in English, and are not capitalised. However, as in French and other Indo-European languages (but not English), they are generally inflected when they come before a noun: they take an ending that depends on the gender and case of the noun phrase.

• Ein kleiner Mann ("a short man"; masculine gender)
• Eine kleine Frau ("a short woman"; feminine gender)
• Ein kleines Mädchen ("a short girl"; neuter gender)

 

The type of article or determiner preceding the noun also affects the inflection: in German, "a red book" and "the red book" have different adjective endings:

• Ein rotes Buch
• Das rote Buch

 

Like articles, adjectives use the same plural endings for all three genders, though this does vary with the article or determiner as described above.

• Eine lustige Frau ("a funny woman"; feminine gender)
• Ein lustiger Mann ("a funny man"; masculine gender)

• Die lustigen Frauen ("the funny women"; plural)
• Die lustigen Männer ("the funny men"; plural)

 

Participles may be used as adjectives and are treated in the same way.

• Ein wieder geöffneter Bahnhof (a re-opened railway station, masculine)
• Eine wieder geöffnete Bibliothek (a re-opened library, feminine)

 

German adjectives are declined only when they come before the noun in which they describe. This is called the attributive position of a nominal phrase. Predicative adjectives, those in English separated from the noun by "is" or "are", are not declined and are indistinguishable from adverbs, unlike in Romance and North Germanic languages.

• Die laute Musik. ("The loud music.")
• Die Musik ist laut. ("The music is loud.") - NOT Die Musik ist laute.

 

There are some words that can be used as adjectives but are not inflected, such as Schweizer ("Swiss") and Jerusalemer ("pertaining to Jerusalem", for example Jerusalemer Kreuz).

There are three degrees of comparison: positive form, comparative form, and superlative form: these correspond to (and have the same endings as) English equivalents such as "large", "larger" and "largest". "Very loud" is said as sehr laut, as in English but unlike Italian and Latin, no ending exists to express this absolute superlative form as a single word.

 

Weak and strong inflection

 

Strong inflection

Strong inflection is used:

• When no article is used
• When a quantity is indicated by
  • etwas ("some", "somewhat"), mehr ("more")
  • wenig- ("few"), viel- ("much", "many"), mehrer- ("several", "many"), einig- ("some")
  • a number (greater than one, i.e. with no endings)
  • non inflectable phrases: ein paar ("a couple", "a few"), ein bisschen ("a bit", "a little bit")

 

The adjective endings are the same as the definite article endings, apart from the adjectival ending -en in the masculine and neuter genitive singular.

 

	Masculine	Neuter	Feminine	Plural
Nominative	neuer	neues	neue	neue
Accusative	neuen	neues	neue	neue
Dative	neuem	neuem	neuer	neuen
Genitive	neuen	neuen	neuer	neuer

 

Mixed inflection

Mixed inflection is used after:

• indefinite article ein-, kein-, eine, keine
• possessive determiners mein-, dein-, sein-, etc.

Nominative and accusative singular endings follow the definite article, all other forms end with -en.

 

	Masculine	Neuter	Feminine	Plural
Nominative	neuer	neues	neue	neuen
Accusative	neuen	neues	neue	neuen
Dative	neuen	neuen	neuen	neuen
Genitive	neuen	neuen	neuen	neuen

 

Weak inflection

Weak inflection is used after:

• definite articles (der, die, das, etc)
• derselb- ("the same"), derjenig- ("the one")
• dies- ("this"), jen- ("that"), jeglich- ("any"), jed- ("every"), which decline like the definite article.
• manch- ("some"), solch- ("such"), welch- ("which"), which decline like the definite article.
• alle ("all")

 

Five endings in the nominative and accusative cases end with -e, all others with -en.

	Masculine	Neuter	Feminine	Plural
Nominative	neue	neue	neue	neuen
Accusative	neuen	neue	neue	neuen
Dative	neuen	neuen	neuen	neuen
Genitive	neuen	neuen	neuen	neuen

 

Plural nouns that do not already end with -(e)n or -s always have an -n added to the plural form in the dative case, no matter what inflection is being used. This process then yields the following: den armen Leuten, ihren armen Kindern, or kalten Getränken, but also den Autos or den Radios which do not gain the ending.

 

No inflection

Several quantifying words are not inflected:

• nichts, wenig, etwas, viel, and genug
• numbers greater than one

wenig and viel can be put in the plural, where they take endings as normal: viele/wenige Kinder

 

Criteria for Inflection

German adjectives take different sets of endings in different circumstances. Essentially, the adjectives must provide case, gender and number information only if the articles do not. This is among the more confusing aspects of German grammar for those learning the language. However, the adjective endings nearly always adhere to the following rules.

 

Strong Inflection

The strong inflection is used when there is no article at all, or if the noun is preceded by a non-inflectable word or phrase such as ein bisschen, etwas or viel ("a little", "some", "a lot of/much"). It is also used when the adjective is preceded merely by another regular (i.e non-article) adjective.

 

Mixed Inflection

The mixed inflection is used when the adjective is preceded by an indefinite article (ein-, kein-) or a possessive determiner.

Note: The prevailing view is that the mixed inflection is not a true inflection in its own right, but merely the weak inflection with a few additions to compensate for the lack of the masculine nominative and neuter nominative and accusative endings.

 

Weak inflection

The weak inflection is used when there is a definite word in place (der, die, das, den, dem, des, jed-, jen-, manch-, dies-, solch- and welch-). The definite word has provided most of the necessary information, so the adjective endings are simpler.

The endings are applicable to every degree of comparison (positive, comparative, and superlative).

 

Adjective comparison

 

Positive form

The basic form of the adjective is the positive form: the adjective stem with the appropriate ending.

schön (basic positive form) - das schöne Lied ("the beautiful song")

 

Comparative form

The basic comparative form consists of the stem and the suffix -er. Inflected, the corresponding adjective ending is attached.

schöner (basic comparative form) - das schönere Lied ("the more beautiful song")

 

Superlative form

A predicate form of the superlative is actually a prepositional phrase. You attach the suffixes -st and the adjective ending -en to the root, and the word am is put before it.

am schönsten ("the most beautiful") - Ich finde dieses Haus am schönsten. ("I find this house [to be] the most beautiful.")

The attributive superlative form adds the st to the comparative root and then the conventional adjective ending.

das schönste Lied

This form can also be placed in a predicate position with the appropriate adjective ending:

Dieses Haus ist das schönste. ("This house is the most beautiful.")

 

 

Pronouns

 

German pronouns describe a set of German words with specific functions. As with other pronouns, they are frequently employed the subject or object of a clause, acting as substitutes for nouns or noun phrases, but are also used in relative clauses to relate the main clause to a subordinate one.

 

Classification and usage

 

Germanic pronouns are divided into six groups:

• Personal pronouns, which adverts an entity, such as the speaker or third parties,
• Possessive pronouns, which describe ownership of objects, institutions, etc.,
• Interrogative pronouns, which are used in questions, such as "who?",
• Reflexive pronouns, in which the subject is also one of the objects,
• Relative pronouns, which connect clauses,
• Indefinite pronouns, which denote entities of quantities.

 

The German personal pronouns must always have the same gender, same number, and same case as their antecedents. These rules apply for other pronouns, also.

In German, a pronoun may have a certain position in the sentence under special circumstances. First and second person pronouns usually do not, and they can be used anywhere in the sentence—except in certain poetical or informal contexts.

Das im Schrank ("the thing in the cupboard")

Das auf dem Tisch ("the thing on the table")

 

There are also genitive direct objects. Since the personal pronoun does not have a genitive form, the genitive of the possessive pronoun is applied in those cases. These forms are bracketed. The genitive object, other than accusative or dative objects, is somewhat outdated:

OLD: Ich erinnere mich ihrer. - MODERN: Ich erinnere mich an sie. ("I remember her.")

OLD: Ich erinnere mich seiner. - MODERN: Ich erinnere mich an ihn.

OLD: Ich entsinne mich ihrer. - MODERN: Ich erinnere mich an sie.

 

In Modern German, erinnern rather takes the prepositional phrase with the preposition an. However, some verbs cannot be constructed otherwise, and thus genitive objects remain common language to some degree. This is true for entsinnen (which is archaic in itself), but also for sentences such as:

OLD AND MODERN: Laßt uns der Opfer des Marxismus, Faschismus und Nationalsozialismus gedenken. ("Let us commemorate the victims of Marxism, Fascism, and National Socialism.")

OLD AND MODERN: Ich klage Herrn Max Mustermann des Mordes an. ("I accuse Mr. Thomas Atkins of murder.")

 

The two noun and pronoun emphasizers selber and selbst have slightly different meanings than if used with nominal phrases. They normally emphasize the pronoun, but if they are applied to a reflexive pronoun (in the objective case), they emphasize its reflexive meaning.

 

Personal pronouns

 

	Singular					Plural			Formal (singular and plural)
Case	First Person	Second Person	Third Person			First Person	Second Person	Third Person	Second Person
(English nominative)	I	you	he	she	null / it	we	you	they	you
Nominative (subject)	ich	du	er	sie	es	wir	ihr	sie	Sie
Accusative (direct object)	mich	dich	ihn	sie	es	uns	euch	sie	Sie
Dative (indirect object)	mir	dir	ihm	ihr	ihm	uns	euch	ihnen	Ihnen
Genitive	meiner	deiner	seiner	ihrer	seiner	unser	euer	ihrer	Ihrer

 

The verbs following the formal form of "you" - Sie - are conjugated identically as in the first- or third-person plurals. For example, Sie sprechen Deutsch. This means either "You speak German" or "They speak German", and it is completely up to the context to determine which one it is.

Ich rufe den Hund. - Ich rufe ihn. ("I am calling the dog." - "I am calling it."; Literally: "I am calling him.")

 

Genitive personal pronouns (which are themselves rather the borrowed genitive forms from the possessive pronouns) never indicate possession, which is not only outdated but wrong. That is, "my book" translates to mein Buch, or das Buch von mir (the latter would be quite identical to "the book of me"), and never das Buch meiner. These pronouns may be used for the genitive object (gedenke meiner - "commemorate me"). Archaically, the unflected possessive pronoun can be used instead, e.g. Vergißmeinnicht (instead of: vergiß meiner nicht or - vergessen takes the accusative as well - vergiss mich nicht in more modern form).

Another place where they are used is after prepositions requiring the genitive case, e.g. seitens meiner ("on my part", more typically meinerseits). However, many of these prepositions can anyway, at least in more colloquial usage, be constructed with the dative, which however is no personal pronoun issue (e.g. statt mir instead of statt meiner). Ironically, the Bavarian dialect never uses wegen ("because of"), which in Standard German must take the genitive, otherwise than with a dative, with the very one exception of personal pronouns, where wegen meiner (as indicating von mir aus, "if you bother what I will think about it, it's all right") is not altogether unknown.

 

Possessive pronouns

 

Possessive pronouns are formed by adding endings to the genitive case of the personal pronoun, eventually stripping it of its genetive ending. The endings are identical to those of the indefinite article ein.

Uninflected forms
	sg. msc./ntr.	sg. fem.	pl.	courtesy
1st person	mein	mein	unser
2nd person	dein	dein	euer	Ihr
3rd person	sein	ihr	ihr
Example: mein ("my")
	Masculine	Feminine	Neuter	Plurals
Nominative	mein	meine	mein	meine
Accusative	meinen	meine	mein	meine
Dative	meinem	meiner	meinem	meinen
Genitive	meines	meiner	meines	meiner

 

Pronouns derived from articles

 

To replace a nominal by a pronoun that is derived from an article, the declined form corresponding to the gender, case, and number of the nominal phrase is used.

Although the pronoun form and the article form are the same in most cases, there are sometimes differences.

 

	Masculine	Feminine	Neuter	Plural
Nominative	der	die	das	die
Accusative	den	die	das	die
Dative	dem	der	dem	den
Genitive	des	der	des	der

 

Reflexive pronouns

 

There are also reflexive pronouns for the dative case and the accusative case. In the first and second person, they are the same as the normal pronouns, but they only become visible in the third person singular and plural. The third person reflexive pronoun for both plural and singular is sich:

Er liebt sich. ("He loves himself.")

Sie verstecken sich. ("They hide themselves.")

 

Reflexive pronouns can be used not only for personal pronouns:

Sie hat sich ein Bild gekauft. ("She bought herself a picture.")

Seiner ist schon kaputt. ("His is already broken.")

 

Relative clause

 

A pronoun contains, or rather, has a relative clause, if there is ever a further meaning to express behind the pronoun, that is to say, some more clarification necessary. The relative pronouns are as follows:

	Masculine	Feminine	Neuter	Plural
Nominative	der	die	das	die
Accusative	den	die	das	die
Dative	dem	der	dem	denen
Genitive	dessen	deren	dessen	deren

 

Instead, welcher/e/es may be used, which is seen to be more formal, and only common in interdependent multi-relative clauses, or as a mnemonic to German pupils to learn to distinguish das from dass (it is the first of these if you can say dieses, jenes or welches instead). The relative pronoun is never omitted in German. On the other hand, in English, the phrase

"The young woman I invited for coffee yesterday is my cousin's fiancee."

completely omits the use of a relative pronoun. (The use of the relative pronouns "who" or "that" is optional in sentences like these.) To state such a thing in German, one would say

Die junge Frau, die ich gestern zum Kaffee eingeladen habe, ist die Verlobte meines Cousins.

 

Note that the conjugated verb is placed at the end of German relative clauses. This was the preferable use in Latin sentences as well as in Old High German even for main clauses, and remains intact for subclauses, whereas in main clauses the verb takes the second place. (Exceptions: jokes begin with the verb: Treffen sich zwei Freunde. Kommt einer nicht. which might be translated in a way such as this: "Meeting two friends. Coming one fails to do." In family event lyrics, the old custom may be revived for the sake of forced rhyme, e.g. Mein Onkel ist der beste Mann / und ich dies auch begründen kann. ("My uncle is right best a man / a thing that really prove I can.").

 

Likewise, an English participle such as "The man coming round the corner is a thief" is best translated to a relative clause, e.g. Der Mann, der gerade um die Ecke kommt, ist ein Dieb.

However, it might be translated literally which would result in what some call a very German sentence, e.g. Der gerade um die Ecke kommende Mann ist ein Dieb.

 

Demonstrative pronouns

 

Demonstrative pronouns are used to refer to something already defined.

 

jener, -e, -es ("that", "the former")

dieser, -e, -es ("this", "the latter") [or dies as abbreviation for dieses]

ersterer, -e, -es ("the former")

letzterer, -e, -es ("the latter")

all declined like adjectives (if ersterer or letzterer take the definite article, they are consequently weakly declined, der erstere etc.)

 

derjenige, diejenige, dasjenige ("the one")

Declined like (def. art) + (jenig-) + weak adj. ending

Used to identify a noun to be further identified in a relative clause.

 

derselbe, dieselbe, dasselbe ("the same")

Declined like (def. art) + (selb-) + weak adj. ending

Used to indicate an identity stronger than der gleiche ("the equal") would, however, the derselbe/der gleiche distinction is rather nuanced, not usually insisted upon and, if so, rather complicated for native speakers.

 

 

Adverbial Phrases

 

An adverb is a word that modifies the meaning of a verb, and an adverbial phrase is a combination of words that perform the same function. The German language includes several different kinds of adverbial phrases.

 

Native adverbs

 

Many adverbs are not derived from an adjective. Often they have very important meanings. For example, nicht, leider or gerne ("not", "unfortunately", "gladly").

 

Accusative nouns with adverbial meaning

 

The duration or the spatial extent of a verb's action can be expressed by a nominal expression in the accusative case.

Das Kind malte die ganze Zeit Bilder. ("The child was painting pictures all the time.")

 

 

Adverbial forms of adjectives

 

Adverb formation is simpler in German than most other languages. An adverb is simply the uninflected form of the adjective (or participle). This holds for the positive and comparative forms. The superlative is formed with the preposition am and the ending -en, e.g. am schönsten ("most beautifully"). Only a limited number of adverbs have a special elative form ending in -stens, e.g. schnellstens ("as fast as possible"), bestens ("very well").

schnell ("fast, quickly")

groß ("big, substantially")

fließend ("fluent, fluently")

schneller ("faster, more quickly")

fließender ("more fluent, more fluently")

am schönsten ("most beautiful, most beautifully")

The adverb can be used to describe actions, adjectives or other adverbs. Comparative and superlative forms are unusual in the last two situations.

Der Vogel fliegt schnell. ("The bird flies fast.")

Der Vogel fliegt am schnellsten. ("The bird flies the fastest.")

Ein schrecklich langsam wachsender Baum ("a terribly slow-growing tree", literally "a terribly slowly growing tree")

Ein schneller wachsender Baum ("a faster-growing tree")

In English, adverbs are usually distinguished from adjectives by the ending "-ly". In German, they may be dinstinguished by their lack of declension, because adjectives in predicative position must be declined. Compare:

ein schrecklich hoher Berg ("an awfully high mountain")

ein schrecklicher, hoher Berg ("an awful, high mountain")

 

Adverbs ending in -erweise

 

Unlike English, the German language distinguishes adverbs which qualify verbs or adjectives from those which qualify whole sentences. For the latter case, many German adjectives from a special adverb form ending in -erweise, e.g. glücklicherweise ("luckily"), traurigerweise ("sadly").

In the following two example sentences, the adverb lustig ("funnily") qualifies the verb, while lustigerweise ("funnily") qualifies the whole sentence:

Er hat lustig gesungen. ("He sang funnily." - He sang in a way that was funny.)

Er hat lustigerweise gesungen. ("Funnily, he sang." - It was funny that he sang.)

As in the above example, English usually expresses the difference by placing the adverb which qualifies a sentence, in the beginning. In German, it can be placed in the beginning or elsewhere in the sentence.

 

Prepositional phrases

 

A prepositional phrase consists of a nominal phrase and an adposition (a preposition, postposition, or circumposition). The case of the nominal phrase can be accusative or dative. Some prepositions always take the accusative case and some always take the dative case. Students usually memorize these because the difference may not be intuitive. A third group of prepositions, called two way prepositions, take either the accusative case or the dative case depending on the phrase's exact meaning. If the statement describes movement across a boundary then the phrase is accusative. Other situations, including movement within a confined area, take the dative case.

For example:

Ich schlafe im Haus. [dative case] ("I sleep inside the house." - im is a contraction of in and dem)

Ich laufe ins Haus. [accusative case] ("I run into the house." - ins is a contraction of in and das)

Ich laufe im Haus. [dative case] ("I run within the house.")

 

Note that prepositions do not always have a locative meaning, they can also be modal or temporal adverbs, for example.

Prepositional phrases, being adverbial, may be used to describe actions and adjectives. They can also be attributes of a nominal phrase.

Ich gehe ins Haus. ("I go into the house.")

Eis ist während der Sommerzeit begehrt. ("Ice-cream is much sought-after in the summertime.")

In some cases, the preposition and the article of the nominal phrase may or must elide together. This is similar to Italian.

NOT von dem Himmel - BUT vom Himmel

 

Pronominal adverb

A real position can be substituted by a pronominal adverb.

auf dem Tisch - darauf ("on the table - on there")

auf den Berg hinauf - dort hinauf ("up the mountain - up there")

während der Schulstunde - währenddessen ("during the lesson - during it")

der Gerechtigkeit wegen - deswegen ("because of justice - because of it")

mit dem Flugzeug - damit ("by plane - by it")

Pronominal adverbs may be preceded by an adverbial clause. See below.

 

Adverbial clause

Besides prepositional phrases and pronominal adverbs, there are also adverbial clauses. They can be applied to actions as well as to nominal phrases and pronominal adverbs.

Ich ging nach Hause, während die Sonne unterging. ("I went home as the sun was setting.")

damals, als/während Helmut Kohl Bundeskanzler war ("in those days, when/while Helmut Kohl was chancellor")

in jenem Jahr, als/während Helmut Kohl Bundeskanzler war ("in that year, when/while Helmut Kohl was chancellor")

 

Such a sentence can also completely replace a position or pronominal adverb.

als Willy Brandt Bundeskanzler war INSTEAD OF damals, als Willy Brandt Bundeskanzler war ("when Willy Brandt was chancellor" / "in those days when Willy Brandt was chancellor")

wo die Sonne scheint INSTEAD OF am Himmel, wo die Sonne scheint ("where the sun shines" / "in the sky, where the sun shines")

 

 

Conjugation

 

German verbs are conjugated depending on their use: as in English, they are modified depending on the persons (identity) and number of the subject of a sentence, as well as depending on the tense and mood.

German verbs start with an infinitive form: the bare form of the verb, which ends with -en. To conjugate regular verbs, this is removed and replaced with alternative endings:

machen ("to do")

• Ich mache ("I do")
• Er macht ("He does")
• Ich machte ("I did")
• Er machte ("He did")

In general, irregular forms of German verbs exist to make for easier and clearer pronunciation, with a vowel sound in the centre of the word the only part of the word that changes in an unexpected way (though endings may also be slightly different). This modification is often a moving of the vowel sound to one pronounced further forward in the mouth. This process is called the Germanic Umlaut. However, a number of verbs including sein ("to be") are fully irregular, as in English "I am" and "I was" sound completely different.

wissen ("to know")

• Ich weiss ("I know") - vowel change, -e missing
• Ich wusste ("I knew") - vowel change, otherwise regular

singen ("to sing")

• Ich singe ("I sing") - regular
• Ich sang ("I sang") - vowel change, -te missing

For many German tenses, the verb itself is locked in a non-varying form of the infinitive or past participle (which normally starts with ge-) that is the same regardless of the subject, and then joined to an auxiliary verb that is conjugated. This is similar to English grammar, though the primary verb is normally placed at the end of the clause. Note that in both the examples shown below the auxiliary verb is irregular.

• Ich kaufe das Buch. ("I buy the book.")
• Ich werde das Buch kaufen. ("I will buy the book.")
• Sie wird das Buch kaufen. ("She will buy the book.")
• Ich habe das Buch gekauft. ("I have bought the book.")
• Sie hat das Buch gekauft. ("She has bought the book.")

The following tenses and modi are formed by direct conjugation of the verb:

• Present (Präsens)
• Imperfect (Präteritum)
• Imperative (Imperativ)
• Perfect (Perfekt) - Past Participle, does not vary by subject
• Conditional I and II (Konjunktiv)

Below is a paradigm of German verbs, that is, a set of conjugation tables, for the model regular verbs and for some of the most common irregular verbs, including the irregular auxiliary verbs.

 

German tenses and moods

 

German verbs have forms for a range of subjects, indicating number and social status:

• First person singular: Ich ("I")
• Second person familiar: Du ("you") - as used to a friend
• Third person: Er, Sie, Es ("he/she/it") - with the same form for all three
• First person plural: Wir ("we")
• Second person plural: Ihr ("you")
• Second person polite: Sie ("you") - which is always capitalised
• Third person plural: Sie ("they") - not automatically capitalised

The subject does not have to be one of these pronouns, but can instead be anything that has the same person and number. For example, in the sentences Der Ball ist rund ("the ball is round") and Es ist rund ("it is round") the verb is in the same form: third person singular.

In German, the first and third person plural and second person plural/polite forms are identical for each tense. Sie in the second person is used to address one or more people of high status.

As a summary of German tenses, moods and aspects:

The German present tense matches both the English present ("I walk to work every day") and also the present progressive ("I am walking to work right now"), to which standard German has no direct equivalent  (see below for a colloquial alternative). It is formed similarly to the English present tense, by directly conjugating the relevant verb to match the subject.

The perfect ("I have gone to work", also sometimes called the present perfect) is mostly formed, again as in English, from the appropriate present tense form of "to have" (haben) and a past participle of the relevant verb placed at the end of the clause. Some intransitive verbs involving motion or change take "to be" (sein) instead of haben, this may depend on the exact meaning of the sentence. Note that both haben and sein are used in the present tense, and are irregular verbs.

• Er hat das Buch gelesen. ("He has read the book" - literally "He has the book read.")
• Er ist ins Kino gegangen. ("He has gone into the cinema" - but literally "He is into the cinema gone.")

The imperfect ("I closed the door", usually avoided when speaking) is formed from the verb, as in English. The verb may be regular or irregular.

The pluperfect ("I had read the book, when...") is formed in the same way as in English: identically to the perfect, except with an imperfect form of haben or sein instead of a present tense form.

• Er hatte das Buch gelesen. ("He had read the book.")
• Er war ins Kino gegangen. ("He had gone into the cinema.")

The future tense ("I will read the book." or "I'm going to read the book.") is formed from the appropriate present tense form of the verb werden ("to become") and, as in English, the infinitive of the relevant verb.

• Ich werde das Buch lesen. ("I will read the book.")

A classic but easily avoided mistake made by English-speakers learning German is to use Ich will - which actually means "I want to".

The imperative ("Be quiet!", "Open the door!") is formed by direct conjugation of the verb and varies by number and status of the people addressed, unlike English which always uses an infinitive.

• Sei ruhig! ("Be quiet!") - when speaking to one person, but Seien Sie ruhig! when speaking to an authority figure. Sei and Seien are both formed from sein ("to be").

The conditional ("I would do it.") can be formed from würden ("would") and the infinitive of the relevant verb, placed at the end of the clause.

• Ich würde sie lieben. ("I would love her.")

Additional forms of the conditional (known as Konjunktiv I & II, for the present and imperfect) also exist. They are equivalent to English forms such as "If I were rich" or "If I loved him" (but also "It would be great"), and exist for every verb in the present and imperfect tense. They are often avoided for uncommon verbs. For the future tense conditional, the conditional form of werden is used with an infinitive.

• Wenn ich reich wäre ("If I were rich")
• Wenn ich mehr Geld hätte ("If I had more money")
• Es wäre fantastisch ("It would be fantastic")

The passive ("It is done") may be formed for any tense. It is formed from the past participle and the appropriate form of the verb werden ("to become").

• Der Rasen wird gemäht. ("The lawn is being mowed." - literally "The lawn becomes/is becoming mowed.")
• Der Rasen wurde gemäht. ("The lawn was mowed." - literally "The lawn became/was becoming mowed.")
• Der Rasen ist gemäht geworden. ("The lawn has been mowed.")
• Der Rasen wird gemäht werden. ("The lawn will be mowed." - this uses the verb werden twice in one sentence, but is still quite correct.)
• Der Rasen würde gemäht werden. ("The lawn would be mowed.")

Many German verbs can be converted into the names of jobs, adjectives and verbal nouns describing processes (as English "to clean" becomes "the cleaner", "the man cleaning the window" and "the cleaning process"). These generally follow regular patterns, with endings such as -en and -ung. Colloquial German, in particular in the Rhineland and Ruhr areas, uses these verbal nouns with sein to create a kind of present progressive known as the rheinische Verlaufsform:

• Ich bin am Arbeiten. ("I'm working.")

Note that Arbeiten is not a verb as in the English equivalent but a noun, and is therefore capitalised. A literal translation would be "I'm at the working."

A colloquial method to express future actions is to use present tense with an adjective like "tomorrow" showing that the event will happen in the future:

Morgen kaufe ich Lebensmittel. ("Tomorrow, I am going to buy groceries." - literally "Tomorrow, I buy groceries.")

 

Regular verbs

 

-en verbs

• lieben -"to love"

The following tables include only the active simple tenses: those formed by direct conjugation from the verb.

Non-finite
Infinitiv Präsens	lieben
Infinitiv Futur I	lieben werden
substantivierter Infinitiv	das Lieben (gen. des Liebens)
Partizip I Praesens	liebend (liebender, liebende, liebendes, liebende)
Partizip II (Perfekt)	geliebt (geliebter, geliebte, geliebtes, geliebte)
Indikativ	ich	du	er	wir	ihr	sie/Sie
Präsens	liebe	liebst	liebt	lieben	liebt	lieben
Präteritum	liebte	liebtest	liebte	liebten	liebtet	liebten
Futur I	werde lieben	wirst lieben	wird lieben	werden lieben	werdet lieben	werden lieben
Konditional	ich	du	er	wir	ihr	sie/Sie
Präsens	würde lieben	würdest lieben	würde lieben	würden lieben	würdet lieben	würden lieben
Konjunktiv	ich	du	er	wir	ihr	sie/Sie
Konjunktiv I	liebe	liebest	liebe	lieben	liebet	lieben
Konjunktiv II	liebte	liebtest	liebte	liebten	liebtet	liebten
Futur I	werde lieben	werdest lieben	werde lieben	werden lieben	werdet lieben	werden lieben
Imperativ		du		wir	ihr	Sie
		lieb(e)		lieben	liebt	lieben

The ending -e in the imperative singular is almost obligatorily lost in colloquial usage. In the standard language it may be lost or not: lieb! or liebe!, sag! or sage!

The ending -e in the 1st person singular of the present is always kept in normal written style (ich liebe, ich sage), but may also be lost in colloquial usage (ich lieb, ich sag). This occurs more often than not in the middle of a sentence, somewhat less frequently if the verb comes to stand in the end of a sentence.

 

-n verbs

• handeln -"to act"

When a verb stem ends in -el or -er, the ending -en is dropped in favor of -n.

Non-finite
Infinitiv Präsens	handeln
Infinitiv Futur I	handeln werden
substantivierter Infinitiv	das Handeln (gen. des Handelns)
Partizip I Praesens	handelnd (handelnder, handelnde, handelndes, handelnde)
Partizip II (Perfekt)	gehandelt (gehandelter, gehandelte, gehandeltes, gehandelte)
Indikativ	ich	du	er	wir	ihr	sie/Sie
Präsens	handle/handele	handelst	handelt	handeln	handelt	handeln
Präteritum	handelte	handeltest	handelte	handelten	handeltet	handelten
Futur I	werde handeln	wirst handeln	wird handeln	werden handeln	werdet handeln	werden handeln
Konditional	ich	du	er	wir	ihr	sie/Sie
Präsens	würde handeln	würdest handeln	würde handeln	würden handeln	würdet handeln	würden handeln
Konjunktiv	ich	du	er	wir	ihr	sie/Sie
Konjunktiv I	handle	handlest	handle	handlen	handlet	handlen
Konjunktiv II	handelte	handeltest	handelte	handelten	handeltet	handelten
Futur I	werde handeln	werdest handeln	werde handeln	werden handeln	werdet handeln	werden handeln
Imperativ		du		wir	ihr	Sie
		handle		handeln	handelt	handeln

 

-ten verbs

• arbeiten -"to work"

When a verb stem ends in -t, an intermediate -e- is added before most endings to prevent a large consonant cluster.

Non-finite
Infinitiv Präsens	arbeiten
Infinitiv Futur I	arbeiten werden
substantivierter Infinitiv	das Arbeiten (gen. des Arbeitens)
Partizip I Praesens	arbeitend (arbeitender, arbeitende, arbeitendes, arbeitende)
Partizip II (Perfekt)	gearbeitet (gearbeiteter, gearbeitetet, gearbeitetes, gearbeitete)
Indikativ	ich	du	er	wir	ihr	sie/Sie
Präsens	arbeite	arbeitest	arbeitet	arbeiten	arbeitet	arbeiten
Präteritum	arbeitete	arbeitetest	arbeitete	arbeiteten	arbeitetet	arbeiteten
Futur I	werde arbeiten	wirst arbeiten	wird arbeiten	werden arbeiten	werdet arbeiten	werden arbeiten
Konditional	ich	du	er	wir	ihr	sie/Sie
Präsens	würde arbeiten	würdest arbeiten	würde arbeiten	würden arbeiten	würdet arbeiten	würden arbeiten
Konjunktiv	ich	du	er	wir	ihr	sie/Sie
Konjunktiv I	arbeite	arbeitest	arbeite	arbeiten	arbeitet	arbeiten
Konjunktiv II	arbeitete	arbeitetest	arbeitete	arbeiteten	arbeitetet	arbeiteten
Futur I	werde arbeiten	werdest arbeiten	werde arbeiten	werden arbeiten	werdet arbeiten	werden arbeiten
Imperativ		du		wir	ihr	Sie
		arbeite		arbeiten	arbeitet	arbeiten

 

Irregular verbs

 

-en verbs

• fahren -"to drive"

Certain verbs change their stem vowel for the second and third person singular forms. These usually follow one of three patterns:

• e - ie
• e - i
• a - ä

Non-finite
Infinitiv Präsens	fahren
Infinitiv Futur I	fahren werden
substantivierter Infinitiv	das Fahren (gen. des Fahrens)
Partizip I Praesens	fahrend (fahrender, fahrende, fahrendes, fahrende)
Partizip II (Perfekt)	gefahren (gefahrener, gefahrene, gefahrenes, gefahrene)
Indikativ	ich	du	er	wir	ihr	sie/Sie
Präsens	fahre	fährst	fährt	fahren	fahrt	fahren
Präteritum	fuhr	fuhrst	fuhr	fuhren	fuhrt	fuhren
Futur I	werde fahren	wirst fahren	wird fahren	werden fahren	werdet fahren	werden fahren
Konditional	ich	du	er	wir	ihr	sie/Sie
Präsens	würde fahren	würdest fahren	würde fahren	würden fahren	würdet fahren	würden fahren
Konjunktiv	ich	du	er	wir	ihr	sie/Sie
Konjunktiv I	fahre	fahrest	fahre	fahren	fahret	fahren
Konjunktiv II	führe	führest	führe	führen	führet	führen
Futur I	werde fahren	werdest fahren	werde fahren	werden fahren	werdet fahren	werden fahren
Imperativ		du		wir	ihr	Sie
		fahr(e)		fahren	fahrt	fahren

 

• geben -"to give"

Certain verbs change their stem vowels for the preterite indicative and subjunctive. These changes are unique for each verb.

Non-finite
Infinitiv Präsens	geben
Infinitiv Futur I	geben werden
substantivierter Infinitiv	das Geben (gen. des Gebens)
Partizip I Praesens	gebend (gebender, gebende, gebendes, gebende)
Partizip II (Perfekt)	gegeben (gegebener, gegebene, gegebenes, gegangene)
Indikativ	ich	du	er	wir	ihr	sie/Sie
Präsens	gebe	gibst	gibt	geben	gebt	geben
Präteritum	gab	gabst	gab	gaben	gabt	gaben
Futur I	werde geben	wirst geben	wird geben	werden geben	werdet geben	werden geben
Konditional	ich	du	er	wir	ihr	sie/Sie
Präsens	würde geben	würdest geben	würde geben	würden geben	würdet geben	würden geben
Konjunktiv	ich	du	er	wir	ihr	sie/Sie
Konjunktiv I	gebe	gebest	gebe	geben	gebet	geben
Konjunktiv II	gäbe	gäbest	gäbe	gäben	gäbet	gäben
Futur I	werde geben	werdest geben	werde geben	werden geben	werdet geben	werden geben
Imperativ		du		wir	ihr	Sie
		gib		geben	gebt	geben

 

• gehen -"to go/to walk"

Non-finite
Infinitiv Präsens	gehen
Infinitiv Futur I	gehen werden
substantivierter Infinitiv	das Gehen (gen. des Gehens)
Partizip I Praesens	gehend (gehender, gehende, gehendes, gehende)
Partizip II (Perfekt)	gegangen (gegangener, gegangene, gegangenes, gegangene)
Indikativ	ich	du	er	wir	ihr	sie/Sie
Präsens	gehe	gehst	geht	gehen	geht	gehen
Präteritum	ging	gingst	ging	gingen	gingt	gingen
Futur I	werde gehen	wirst gehen	wird gehen	werden gehen	werdet gehen	werden gehen
Konditional	ich	du	er	wir	ihr	sie/Sie
Präsens	würde gehen	würdest gehen	würde gehen	würden gehen	würdet gehen	würden gehen
Konjunktiv	ich	du	er	wir	ihr	sie/Sie
Konjunktiv I	gehe	gehest	gehe	gehen	gehet	gehen
Konjunktiv II	ginge	gingest	ginge"	gingen	ginget	gingen
Futur I	werde gehen	werdest gehen	werde gehen	werden gehen	werdet gehen	werden gehen
Imperativ		du		wir	ihr	Sie
		geh(e)		gehen	geht	gehen

 

Modal verbs

 

• dürfen -"may"

In modal verbs, the stem vowel will change for all conjugations of the singular simple present. These changes are unique to each verb. In addition, the ending will be missing for the first and third person conjugations of the singular simple present.

Non-finite
Infinitiv Präsens	dürfen
Infinitiv Futur I	dürfen werden
substantivierter Infinitiv	das Dürfen (gen. des Dürfens)
Partizip I Praesens	dürfend (dürfender, dürfende, dürfendes, dürfende)
Partizip II (Perfekt)	gedurft (gedurfter, gedurfte, gedurftes, gedurfte)
Indikativ	ich	du	er	wir	ihr	sie/Sie
Präsens	darf	darfst	darf	dürfen	dürft	dürfen
Präteritum	durfte	durftest	durfte	durften	durftet	durften
Futur I	werde dürfen	wirst dürfen	wird dürfen	werden dürfen	werdet dürfen	werden dürfen
Konditional	ich	du	er	wir	ihr	sie/Sie
Präsens	würde dürfen	würdest dürfen	würde dürfen	würden dürfen	würdet dürfen	würden dürfen
Konjunktiv	ich	du	er	wir	ihr	sie/Sie
Konjunktiv I	dürfe	dürfest	dürfe	dürfen	dürfet	dürfen
Konjunktiv II	dürfte	dürftest	dürfte	dürften	dürftet	dürften
Futur I	werde dürfen	werdest dürfen	werde dürfen	werden dürfen	werdet dürfen	werden dürfen
Imperativ		du		wir	ihr	Sie
		dürfe		dürfen	dürft	dürfen

 

werden

 

• werden -"to become/shall/will" (to form Passiv I and the Future)

Non-finite
Infinitiv Präsens	werden
Infinitiv Futur I	werden werden
substantivierter Infinitiv	das Werden (gen. des Werdens)
Partizip I Praesens	werdend (werdender, werdende, werdendes, werdende)
Partizip II (Perfekt)	geworden (gewordener, gewordene, geworndenes, gewordene) (to become) / worden (auxiliary)
Indikativ	ich	du	er	wir	ihr	sie/Sie
Präsens	werde	wirst	wird	werden	werdet	werden
Präteritum	wurde (arch. ward)	wurdest (arch. wardst)	wurde (arch. ward)	wurden	wurdet	wurden
Futur I	werde werden	wirst werden	wird werden	werden werden	werdet werden	werden werden
Konditional	ich	du	er	wir	ihr	sie/Sie
Präsens	würde werden	würdest werden	würde werden	würden werden	würdet werden	würden werden
Konjunktiv	ich	du	er	wir	ihr	sie/Sie
Konjunktiv I	werde	werdest	werde	werden	werdet	werden
Konjunktiv II	würde	würdest	würde	würden	würdet	würden
Futur I	werde werden	werdest werden	werde werden	werden werden	werdet werden	werden werden
Imperativ		du		wir	ihr	Sie
		werde		werden	werdet	werden

 

sein

 

• sein -"to be" (to form Passiv II and the Perfect)

Non-finite
Infinitiv Präsens	sein
Infinitiv Futur I	sein werden
substantivierter Infinitiv	das Sein (gen. des Seins)
Partizip I Praesens	seiend (seiender, seiende, seiendes, seiende)
Partizip II (Perfekt)	gewesen (gewesener, gewesene, gewesenes, gewesene)
Indikativ	ich	du	er	wir	ihr	sie/Sie
Präsens	bin	bist	ist	sind	seid	sind
Präteritum	war	warst	war	waren	wart	waren
Futur I	werde sein	wirst sein	wird sein	werden sein	werdet sein	werden sein
Konditional	ich	du	er	wir	ihr	sie/Sie
Präsens	würde sein	würdest sein	würde sein	würden sein	würdet sein	würden sein
Konjunktiv	ich	du	er	wir	ihr	sie/Sie
Konjunktiv I	sei	sei(e)st	sei	seien	seiet	seien
Konjunktiv II	wäre	wärest	wäre	wären	wäret	wären
Futur I	werde sein	werdest sein	werde sein	werden sein	werdet sein	werden sein
Imperativ		du		wir	ihr	Sie
		sei		seien	seid	seien

 

haben

 

• haben -"to have" (to form the Perfect)

Non-finite
Infinitiv Präsens	haben
Infinitiv Futur I	haben werden
substantivierter Infinitiv	das Haben (gen. des Habens)
Partizip I Praesens	habend (habender, habende, habendes, habende)
Partizip II (Perfekt)	gehabt (gehabter, gehabte, gehabtes, gehabte)
Indikativ	ich	du	er	wir	ihr	sie/Sie
Präsens	habe	hast	hat	haben	habt	haben
Präteritum	hatte	hattest	hatte	hatten	hattet	hatten
Futur I	werde haben	wirst haben	wird haben	werden haben	werdet haben	werden haben
Konditional	ich	du	er	wir	ihr	sie/Sie
Präsens	würde haben	würdest haben	würde haben	würden haben	würdet haben	würden haben
Konjunktiv	ich	du	er	wir	ihr	sie/Sie
Konjunktiv I	habe	habest	habe	haben	habet	haben
Konjunktiv II	hätte	hättest	hätte	hätten	hättet	hätten
Futur I	werde haben	werdest haben	werde haben	werden haben	werdet haben	werden haben
Imperativ		du		wir	ihr	Sie
		hab(e)		haben	habt	haben

 

tun

 

• tun -"to do"

Non-finite
Infinitiv Präsens	tun
Infinitiv Futur I	tun werden
substantivierter Infinitiv	das Tun (gen. des Tuns)
Partizip I Praesens	tuend (tuender, tuende, tuendes, tuende)
Partizip II (Perfekt)	getan (getaner, getane, getanes, getane)
Indikativ	ich	du	er	wir	ihr	sie/Sie
Präsens	tue	tust	tut	tun	tut	tun
Präteritum	tat	tatest	tat	taten	tatet	taten
Futur I	werde tun	wirst tun	wird tun	werden tun	werdet tun	werden tun
Konditional	ich	du	er	wir	ihr	sie/Sie
Präsens	würde tun	würdest tun	würde tun	würden tun	würdet tun	würden tun
Konjunktiv	ich	du	er	wir	ihr	sie/Sie
Konjunktiv I	tue	tuest	tue	tuen	tuet	tuen
Konjunktiv II	täte	tätest	täte	täten	tätet	täten
Futur I	werde tun	werdest tun	werde tun	werden tun	werdet tun	werden tun
Imperativ		du		wir	ihr	Sie
		tu(e)		tun	tut	tun

 

Separable and inseparable verbs

 

In German, prepositions and modifying prefixes are frequently attached to verbs to alter their meaning. Verbs so formed are divided into separable verbs which detach the prefix in the present tense and inseparable verbs which do not. The conjugations are identical to that of the root verb, and the position of the prefix for both separable and inseparable verbs follows a standard pattern. The prefix's effect on the verb is highly unpredictable, so normally the meaning of each new verb has to be learned separately.

Separable verbs detach their prefixes in the present, imperfect and imperative. The prefix is placed at the end of the clause. The past participle is the prefix attached to the normal past participle. The infinitive keeps the prefix where it is used, for example in the conditional and future tenses.

nehmen - "to take" (irregular verb)

• Er nimmt das Buch. ("He is taking the book." - vowel change)
• Er hat das Buch genommen. ("He has taken the book." - vowel change and the -en ending common with irregular verbs)
• Er wird das Buch nehmen. ("He will take the book." - future tense)

zunehmen - "to increase" or "put on weight"

• Es nimmt schnell zu. ("It is quickly increasing.")
• Es hat schnell zugenommen. ("It has quickly increased.")
• Es wird schnell zunehmen. ("It will increase quickly." - "increase" is being used in the infinitive as this is the future tense.)

Inseparable verbs retain the prefix at all times. The past participle has the prefix in place of ge- but keeps any irregularities of the root verb's past participle.

kaufen - "to buy" (regular verb)

• Ich kaufe es. ("I buy it.")
• Ich habe es gekauft. ("I have bought it.")

verkaufen - "to sell"

• Ich verkaufe es. ("I sell it.")
• Ich habe es verkauft. ("I have sold it." - regular apart from ver- replacing ge-)

A number of verbs are separable with one meaning and inseparable with another. For example, übersetzen means to translate as an inseparable verb but to ferry as a separable verb.

 

 

Sentence structure

 

German sentence structure is somewhat more complex than that of many other European languages, but similar to Dutch, with phrases regularly inverted for both questions and subordinate phrases. Generally the main sentence structure rule is that the conjugated verb is always the second element in a main clause or the last element in a subordinating clause. Verbs in the infinitive are generally placed after their respective object.

 

Main sentence

 

If a verb has a separable prefix, this prefix is moved to the end of the sentence.

Ich werde den Müll wegwerfen. ("I will throw away the rubbish." - literally "I will the rubbish away-throw.")

Ich werfe den Müll weg. [statement] ("I"m throwing away / I throw away the rubbish." - literally "I throw the rubbish away.")

Werfe ich den Müll weg? [question] ("Am I throwing away the rubbish?" - literally "Throw I the rubbish away?")

Wirf den Müll weg! [command, familiar form] ("Throw away the rubbish!" - literally "Throw the rubbish away!")

 

Statement

A simple statement is constructed in the following manner: the subject comes first, then the conjugated verb, then the object and any infinitives or participles.

Ich + den Baum sehen -> Ich sehe den Baum. (I + to see the tree -> "I see the tree.")

Ein Text + geschrieben werden -> Ein Text wird geschrieben. (A text + to be written -> "A text is being written.")

Wir + den Raum verlassen -> Wir verlassen den Raum. (we + to leave the room -> "We leave the room.")

Der König + eine Burg bauen lassen -> Der König lässt eine Burg bauen. (the king + to have a castle built -> "The king has a castle built.")

 

If the conjugated verb has a separable prefix, this prefix stays at the end of the sentence.

Ich + den Müll wegwerfen -> Ich werfe den Müll weg. (I + to dispose of the trash -> "I dispose of the trash.")

 

In addition, past participles in the perfect tenses fall at the end of the sentence, with the conjugated auxiliary verb (Hilfsverb) in the second position of the sentence.

Conventional German syntax presents information within a sentence in the following order:

• Wichtigstes (what is the most important thing of the things following?)
• Was ("what" - the conjugated verb 1)
• Wer ("who" - the subject)
• Wem ("to/for whom" - dative object)
• Wann ("when" - time)
• Warum ("why" - reason)
• Wie ("how" - manner)
• Wo ("where" - place)
• Wen ("whom" - accusative object)
• Wohin/Woher ("to/from where")
• Verb, nochmal (first part of the separable verb)

1) The word da with the meaning "then suddenly" must take the first place. A dann ("then") does so often, but not necessarily, otherwise, the subject will do.


2) If the verb is most important, the first part of the separable verb is placed here, but even then separated from the second part. If the verb is not separable or periphrastical, the infinitive will do.


3) And in this case, a form of tun is legitimately inserted for the conjugated verb, as in Arbeiten tun wir. ("Working, that's what we do.")

• Wir gehen am Freitag miteinander ins Kino. (literally "We go on Friday together to the movies.")
• Wegen ihres Jahrestages bereiten wir unseren Eltern einen Ausflug nach München vor. (literally "We are planning for our parents today because of their anniversary a trip to Munich.")

Comparisons can be put after both parts of the verb, or before the place of its later part:

Er ist größer gewesen als ich. / Er war größer als ich. ("He was greater than me.") 
OR
 Er ist größer als ich gewesen.

Additionally, German often structures a sentence according to increasing news value:

Wir gehen am Donnerstag ins Kino. ("We're going to the movies on Thursday.")

BUT An welchem Tag gehen wir ins Kino? ("What day are we going to the movies?")

Am Donnerstag gehen wir ins Kino. OR Wir gehen am Donnerstag ins Kino. ("On Thursday we're going to the movies." OR "We're going on Thursday to the movies.")

Additionally, when the accusative object is a pronoun, it moves in front of the dative object:

Florian gibt mir morgen das Buch. ("Florian is giving me tomorrow the book.")

BUT Florian gibt es mir morgen. ("Florian is giving it to me tomorrow.")

 

Inversion

By an inversion you emphasize a component of the sentence: an adverbial phrase, a predicative or an object, or even an inner verbal phrase. The subject phrase, at the beginning of an indicative unstressed sentence, is moved directly behind the conjugated verb, and the component to be emphasized is moved to the beginning of the sentence. The conjugated verb is always the second sentence element in indicative statements.

Ich fliege schnell. ("I fly fast." - unstressed) - Schnell fliege ich. ("I fly fast." - stressed "fast")

Du bist wunderschön. ("You are lovely." - unstressed) - Wunderschön bist du. ("You are lovely." - stressed "lovely")

Ich bin gelaufen. ("I ran." - unstressed) - Gelaufen bin ich! ("I ran!" - stressed "ran")

 

Questions

Questions may be divided into yes/no questions, asking for the truthfulness of a statement, and specific questions, which ask for a concrete aspect of a statement.

Specific questions are similar to inverted statements. They begin with a question word, then there is the conjugated verb, followed by the subject (if there is one), and the rest of the sentence follows.

Was machst du jetzt? ("What are you doing now?")

Wer geht ins Kino? ("Who is going to the cinema?" - In this sentence, the interrogative pronoun wer serves as the subject)

 

1. Yes/No questions

This kind of question is similar to the inversion: you put the inflected verb at the beginning of the (not inverted) sentence.

Du kommst. - Kommst du? ("You are coming." - "Are you coming?")

Ich habe geschlafen. - Habe ich geschlafen? ("I slept." - "Did I sleep?")

Ich werde das Spiel beenden. - Werde ich das Spiel beenden? ("I'm going to [lit. "I will"] finish the game." - "Am I going to [lit. "Will I"] finish the game?")

Du wirfst den Torwart raus. - Wirfst du den Torwart raus? ("You are throwing the goalkeeper out." - "Are you throwing the goalkeeper out?")

 

2. Asking for subject or object

In a normal question, you replace the subject phrase or object phrase with a corresponding interrogative pronoun, then move it to the beginning of the sentence, like an inversion. Theoretically, you must use the interrogative pronoun of welcher, welche, welches or a nominal phrase with the interrogative article.

Du hast deiner Frau einen Ring gekauft. ("You bought your wife a ring.")

- Welchen hast du deiner Frau gekauft? ("Which one did you buy your wife?")

 

Du hast deiner Frau einen roten Ring gekauft. ("You bought your wife a red ring.")

- Welchen Ring hast du deiner Frau gekauft? ("Which ring did you buy your wife?")

 

Du hast deiner Frau einen roten Ring gekauft. ("You bought your wife a red ring.")

- Welchen Roten hast du deiner Frau gekauft? ("Which red one did you buy your wife?")

 

Du hast deiner Frau einen roten Ring gekauft. ("You bought your wife a red ring.")

- Welchen roten Ring hast du deiner Frau gekauft? ("Which red ring did you buy your wife?")

 

But the usage of this pronoun implies that the speaker knows both the gender and number of the unknown object. So, practically, you replace these pronouns by short forms.

Du hast deiner Frau einen Ring gekauft. ("You bought your wife a ring.")

- Was hast du deiner Frau gekauft? ("What did you buy your wife?")

 

	person	thing
nominative	wer	was
genitive (object)	wessen	wessen
dative	wem	wem
accusative	wen	was

Regardless of whether you use the full pronoun or the short form, the genitive case is practically only used for genitive objects.

 

3. Asking for a predicative

You ask for a predicative with the either interrogative pronoun Was or, if knowing it is not a nominal phrase, Wie.

Er ist schnell. - Wie/Was ist er? ("He's fast." - "What is he?")

Ein Schmetterling ist ein Insekt. - Was ist ein Schmetterling? ("A butterfly is an insect." - "What is a butterfly?")

You can also use other interrogative pronouns like Wo.

 

3.1 Asking for an adverbial

It is possible to ask for the adverbial of a predicative, if it is not a nominal phrase (and even for the adverbial of the adverbial etc.)

Der Baum ist 3 Meter hoch. - Wie hoch ist der Baum? ("The tree is three metres tall." - "How tall is the tree?")

 

4. Asking for a possessor

When searching for the possessor of a nominal phrase, you first act as if you would invert the corresponding statement, placing the noun with the unknown possessor at the beginning. Then give it the possessive interrogative article (wessen for all cases, genders and numbers). Of course, this nominal phrase may not have a genitive possessor.

Ich habe das Auto des Chefs gesehen. - Wessen Auto hast du gesehen? ("I saw the boss's car." - "Whose car did you see?")

Ich habe sein Auto gesehen. - Wessen Auto hast du gesehen? ("I saw his car." - "Whose car did you see?")

Ich habe sein Auto gesehen. - Wessen hast du gesehen? ("I saw his car." - Whose did you see?")

(Wessen is no longer an article, but a pronoun)

Usage is the same for both unknown possessive articles as for unknown genitive possessors.

 

5. Asking for an adverb

First the interrogative pronoun Wie, then the conjugated verb, next the subject, then the rest of the sentence.

Der Vogel fliegt schnell am Himmel. - Wie fliegt der Vogel am Himmel? ("The bird flies quickly in the sky." - "How does the bird fly in the sky?")

If the adverb describes another adverb or an adjective:

Der Vogel fliegt ungeheuer schnell. - Wie schnell fliegt der Vogel? ("The bird flies amazingly quickly." - "How quickly does the bird fly?")

 

6. Asking for position or adverbial clause

Developing the question for an adverbial phrase may be slightly more complicated.

Theoretically, like the other specific questions, the unknown position is inverted to the beginning of the sentence. Whereas the pre- or post- position remains, the nominal part is replaced either by an interrogative pronoun or by a nominal phrase having the interrogative article.

Er sah den Vogel auf dem Baum. - Auf welchem Baum sah er den Vogel? ("He saw the bird in the tree." - "In which tree did he see the bird?")

Dein Hund wurde in diesem Jahr geboren. - In welchem Jahr wurde dein Hund geboren? ("Your dog was born this year." - "Which year was your dog born?")

Practically, the person asking the question will know neither the gender of the noun, nor the number of the noun, nor even the kind of preposition, before he hears the answer. So a short form is used instead in nearly every case. These short forms are also the only way to ask for an adverbial clause or for a proposition.

Er sah den Vogel auf dem Baum. - Wo sah er den Vogel? ("He saw the bird in the tree." - "Where did he see the bird?")

Dein Hund wurde damals geboren. - Wann wurde dein Hund geboren? ("Your dog was born at that time." - "When was your dog born?")

Some interrogative pronouns: Wo, Woher, Wohin, Wann, Wieso, Weshalb, Warum, Weswegen.

 

Commands

For a command, take the imperative form of the conjugated verb from the infinitive and put it at the beginning of the sentence followed by the corresponding personal pronoun. There also must be an exclamation point at the end of the sentence to make it a command. The separable prefix, if there is one, remains at its old place, separated. In the literary language it is possible to leave the verb at the second place.

If the verb changes the vowel in the second and third person singular, the vowel is also changed in the second person singular of the imperative.

The 2nd person plural pronoun is always omitted. In archaic language, or to emphasize who is ordered for the action, the 2nd person singular pronoun may be left.

Das Tier verfolgen - Verfolge (du) das Tier! ("to trail the animal" - "Trail the animal!")

Das Tier verfolgen lassen - Lass(e) (du) das Tier verfolgen! ("to have the animal trailed" - "Have the animal trailed!")

wegfahren - Fahr(e) (du) weg! ("to drive away" - "Drive away!")

jemanden mitnehmen - Nimm (du) jemanden mit! ("to give someone a lift" - "Give someone a lift!")

Note that an e may be added on to the end of the command form, but only if the verb does not have a stem-change. This is a result of the spoken language and has no difference in meaning. Schreib das Wort auf! means the same as Schreibe das Wort auf! ("Write the word down!")

Lese das Buch!, though very common in spoken language, is considered incorrect because the stem changes from les to lies in the command form. Lies das Buch! ("Read the book!") [singular] and Lest das Buch! [plural] are correct.

There are no imperative forms for first person plural and second person formal. The first and third person plural of the conditional of the present (this is mostly the same form as the indicative aside from sein "to be" for which seien is used) is used (but not for tun "to do" for which tun is used). You must put it to beginning of the sentence, separate the separable prefix before that, and place the personal pronouns wir or Sie directly after it.

wegfahren - Fahren wir weg! ("Let's drive away!") - Fahren Sie weg! ([You] "Drive away!")

froh sein - Seien wir froh! ("Let's be glad!") - Seien Sie froh! ([You] "Be glad!")

Note that imperatives must have the same word order as yes/no questions.

Actual commands are often given as a simple unconjugated infinitive. This is inevitable in the military (excepting the formal commands Rührt euch and Richtet euch), but is not restricted to it.

In Linie antreten! ("Line up!" - to soldiers) but also

Warm anziehen und den Schlüssel nicht vergessen! ("Put some warm clothes on and do not forget your key!" - a mother to her child)

Hey, nicht faulenzen, arbeiten! ("Hey yo, do not laze around, get some work done!" - normal imperative would be very odd)

The military command Stillgestanden! ("Freeze!"), oddly even takes the perfect participle for an imperative.

 

Subordinate clauses

 

A subordinate clause (Nebensatz) is always incorporated in a main sentence (or another subordinate clause). Any part of the main clause can be replaced by it, but some conjugated verb must remain. However, subclauses are generally moved to the end of the sentence if it can be done without inconvenience, and if they do not take the first place because of importance. As for its word order, it differs in two things only from a main clause:

1. In general, it begins with a special word, a "subordinating conjunction" or a relative pronoun, setting it into relation with the encompassing sentence.


2. The verb is, without separation, sent to the place where the first part of a separable verb would be in a main clause, i. e. at the end of the sentence.

Ich nehme das frühere Flugzeug, damit ich heute noch ankomme. ("I'll take the earlier plane so that I arrive even today.")

Question words (in the following example, wohin) have the same effect as subordinating conjunctions within a sentence.

Wohin ist er gelaufen? Niemand wusste, wohin er gelaufen ist. ("Where did he run [to]? No one knew where he ran [to]." - Note that, unlike in English, a subordinate or dependent clause is always separated from the independent clause (Hauptsatz) by a comma.)

Oddities:

1. Final clauses can be replaced by an "um-zu-infinitive", if the subject is identical, in practice, um behaves as conjunction, and the infinitive, with a zu, as conjugated verb, and the subject falls away.

Wir haben genug Geld, um diese CD zu kaufen. - Wir haben genug Geld, damit wir diese CD kaufen. ("We have enough money to/that we buy this CD.")

2. In conditional phrases, the conjunction wenn may be left out in the main clause and the verb put into its place. In this case, so replaces dann in the subordinate clause.

Hast du genügend Geld, so kannst du diese CD kaufen. - Wenn du genügend Geld hast, dann kannst du diese CD kaufen. ("If you have enough money, then you can buy this CD.")

3. Indirect speech may behave as subclause in relation to the main clause, but the conjunction (which would be dass) may be left out and then its word-order is as in main clauses.

Er sagte, er sei mit der Arbeit fertig. - Er sagte, dass er mit der Arbeit fertig sei. ("He said [that] he had finished his work.")

4. Denn, by custom translated into English as "for", is in practice just an equivalent to weil ("because"), but it requires a main-clause word-order and may even take a semicolon instead of a comma.

Er kommt nicht zur Arbeit, denn er ist krank. ("He doesn't come to work, for he's ill.") - Er kommt nicht zur Arbeit, weil er krank ist. - ("He doesn't come to work because he's ill.")

To confuse things, in some dialects weil has the role which denn has in Standard German. However this doesn't mean they generally neglect the subclause word order, since other conjunctions meaning the same, i. e. da ("as") or even a deswegen weil (literally "because of that because") take ordinary subclauses even there.

 

Subordinate sentence structure

Just as in English, a subordinate clause may be used at the beginning or end of a complete expression, so long as it is paired with at least one independent clause. For instance, just as one could say either:

"I will go with you, if I can." or "If I can, I will go with you."

so you can also say in German:

Ich komme mit, wenn ich kann. or Wenn ich kann, komme ich mit.

Note, however, that in German when the independent clause comes after a subordinate clause the conjugated verb comes before the subject. This arises from the basic rule that always places the conjugated verb in a sentence in the second position, even if that puts it ahead of the sentence's subject.

 

Clauses with dass

Subordinate clauses beginning with dass ("thus, so, that") enable the speaker to use statements like nominal phrases or pronouns. These sentences are singular, neuter and either nominative or accusative. However, the verb must go at the end of the sentence.

Ich denke, dass er ein Vater ist. ("I think he is a dad.")

Dass Spinnen keine Insekten sind, ist allgemein bekannt. ("It's well known that spiders are not insects.")

Ich weiß, dass Spinnen keine Insekten sind. - Ich weiß das. ("I know that spiders are not insects - I know that.")

 

Indirect questions with ob

Whereas the word dass indicates that the statement is a fact, ob starts an indirect yes/no question.

Ich weiß nicht, ob ich fliegen soll. ("I don't know whether I should fly.")

 

Specific indirect question

 

 

Relative clauses

The outer nominal phrase the relative clause relates to can be any nominal phrase in any case. The clause begins with a form of the relative pronoun derived from and largely identical to the definite pronoun (der/die/das), or the interrogative pronoun (welchem/welcher/welches), the remaining words are put after it. Using the interrogative pronoun without good cause is considered typical for legalese language.

Der Mann, der/welcher seiner Frau den Hund schenkt. [nominative subject] ("The man who gives his wife the dog.")

Der Hund, den/welchen der Mann seiner Frau schenkt. [accusative object] ("The dog which the man gives his wife.")

Die Frau, der/welcher der Mann den Hund schenkt. [dative object] ("The woman to whom the man gives the dog.")

Der Mann, der/welcher ich bin. [predicative noun] ("The man I am.")

 

The outer nominal phrase can also be the possessor of a noun inside. You use the genitive case of a relative pronoun matching the outer nominal phrase in gender and number.

Der Mann, dessen Auto auf der Straße parkt. ("The man whose car is parked on the street.")

Die Person, deren Auto ich kaufe. ("The person whose car I am buying.")

Das Auto, dessen Fahrer ich helfe. ("The car whose driver I am helping.")

Die Kinder, deren Lehrer ich kenne. ("The children whose teacher I know.")

 

Prepositions/Postpositions are attached to these phrases in the relative clause if necessary.

Das Haus, in dem ich lebe. ("The house I live in.")

Die Person, derentwegen ich hier bin. ("The person I am here because of.")

Das Haus, durch dessen Tür ich gegangen bin. ("The house whose door I came in by.")

 

If the relative pronoun is identical to the definite article several identical forms may follow each other.

Der Mann, der der Frau, der ich schon Honig gegeben hatte, Honig gab, muss mehr Honig kaufen. ("The man who gave honey to the woman I had already given honey to, has to buy more honey.")

Such constructions are generally avoided by using forms of welch- as relative pronouns.

Der Mann, welcher der Frau, welcher ...

or rather

Derjenige, welcher der Frau, der ich ...

Otherwise, welcher is rarely used (never in the genitive), and without a difference in meaning. If the relative pronoun refers to a thing as yet unknown or a whole sentence and not a part of it, was is used instead, always equivalent here to an English "which".

Der Chef stellte einen Arbeiter ein, was diesen sehr gefreut hat. ("The manager hired a worker, which the latter was very happy about.")

From sentences such as this

In dem Geschäft, wo (or in dem) man auch Brot kaufen kann, kaufe ich Bier. ("In this shop where you also can buy bread I am buying beer.")

one may understand why colloquial usage extends this to other quasi-locational prepositional expressions

Die Zeit, wo (= in der) wir Rom besucht haben, war sehr schön. ("The time [lit. where] we visited Rome was really fine." - Regular in der, literally "in which", would translate to a "when" in English.)

and then, in slang, to all relative clauses:

Der Mann, wo bei Siemens arbeitet, hat an der Technischen Universität studiert. ("The man where works at Siemens's has graduated from the Technical University.")

Bavarians never use this form. Southern Germans have constructed a double form der wo, die wo, das wo which, however, is almost necessary in Bavarian dialect. Wo may here be replaced by was, which for undiscoverable reasons seems to occur mostly in the feminine genus.

 

Adverbial clauses

An adverbial clause begins with a conjunction, defining its relation to the verb or nominal phrase described.

Als ich auf dem Meer segelte ("When/As I was sailing on the sea")

Some examples of conjunctions: als, während, nachdem, weil

 

 

Declension

 

German declension is the paradigm that German uses to define all the ways nouns can change their form to reflect their role in the sentence: subject, object, etc. Declension allows speakers to mark a difference between subjects, direct objects, indirect objects and possessives by changing the form of the word—and/or its associated article—instead of indicating this meaning through word order or prepositions (e.g. English, Spanish, French). As a result, German can take a much more fluid approach to word order without the meaning being obscured. In English, a simple sentence must be written in strict word order (ex. John sees Mary). This sentence cannot be expressed in any other word order than how it is written here without substituting one word with a synonym. A transliteration of the same sentence from German to English would appear rather different (ex. John-subject sees Mary-directobject) and can be expressed with a variety of word order (ex. Mary-subject is seen by John-directobject) with little or no change in meaning.

As a fusional language, German marks nouns, pronouns, articles, and adjectives to distinguish case, number, and gender. For example all German adjectives have several different forms. The adjective "new" (neu), for example, can be written in five different ways (neue, neuer, neues, neuen, neuem) depending on the gender of the noun that it modifies, whether the noun is singular or plural, and the role of the noun in the sentence. English completely lacks such declensions, meaning that an adjective can be written in only one form.

Modern High German distinguishes between four cases - nominative, accusative, genitive, and dative - and three grammatical genders - feminine, masculine, and neuter. Nouns may also be either singular or plural, in the plural, one declension is used regardless of gender - meaning that plural can be treated as a fourth "gender" for the purposes of declining articles and adjectives. However, the nouns themselves retain several ways of forming plurals which often, but not always, correspond with the word's gender and structure in the singular. For example, many feminine nouns which, in the singular, end in e, like die Reise ("the journey"), form the plural by adding -n: die Reisen ("the journeys"). Many neuter or masculine nouns ending in a consonant, like das Blatt or der Baum ("the leaf", "the tree") form plurals by a change of vowel and appending -er or -e: die Blätter and die Bäume ("the leaves", "the trees"). Historically, these and several further plural inflections recall the noun declension classes of Proto-Germanic, but in much reduced form.

 

Articles

 

Definite articles

The definite articles (der, etc.) correspond to the English "the". Certain other articles also decline like der: all-, dies-, jed-, jen-, manch-, solch-, welch-. These are often referred to as der-words.

The general declension pattern is as shown in the following table:

	Masculine	Feminine	Neuter	Plural
Nominative	-er	-e	-es	-e
Accusative	-en	-e	-es	-e
Dative	-em	-er	-em	-en
Genitive	-es	-er	-es	-er

However, there is one exception: the definite article for the nominative and accusative neuter is not des, but das.

For example:

	Masculine	Feminine	Neuter	Plural
Nominative	der	die	das	die
Accusative	den	die	das	die
Dative	dem	der	dem	den
Genitive	des	der	des	der
	Masculine	Feminine	Neuter	Plural
Nominative	dieser	diese	dieses	diese
Accusative	diesen	diese	dieses	diese
Dative	diesem	dieser	diesem	diesen
Genitive	dieses	dieser	dieses	dieser
	Masculine	Feminine	Neuter	Plural
Nominative	jeder	jede	jedes	alle
Accusative	jeden	jede	jedes	alle
Dative	jedem	jeder	jedem	allen
Genitive	jedes	jeder	jedes	aller

 

Indefinite articles

The indefinite articles (ein, etc.) correspond to English "a", "an", or "one". Possessive adjectives and kein also follow this pattern, they are often called ein-words. The German term for "possessive adjective" translates as "possessive article" (Possessivartikel).

Ein has no plural, as in English, the plural indefinite article is void, as in Es gibt Kühe auf dem Feld. ("There are cows in the field.")

The general declension pattern is as shown in the following table:

	Masculine	Feminine	Neuter	Plural
Nominative	-	-e	-	-e
Accusative	-en	-e	-	-e
Dative	-em	-er	-em	-en
Genitive	-es	-er	-es	-er

For example:

	Masculine	Feminine	Neuter	Plural
Nominative	kein	keine	kein	keine
Accusative	keinen	keine	kein	keine
Dative	keinem	keiner	keinem	keinen
Genitive	keines	keiner	keines	keiner

Euer is slightly irregular: when it has an ending, the e is dropped and endings are added to the root eur-, e.g. dative masculine eurem.

However, when the indefinite article is used as a pronoun (and doesn't have an additional article), then the indefinite articles work the same way, only this time one adds -er and -es for the nominative case, and -es for the accusative case.

The general declension pattern is as shown in the following table:

	Masculine	Feminine	Neuter	Plural
Nominative	-er	-e	-es	-e
Accusative	-en	-e	-es	-e
Dative	-em	-er	-em	-en
Genitive	-es	-er	-es	-er

For example:

	Masculine	Feminine	Neuter	Plural
Nominative	deiner	deine	deines	deine
Accusative	deinen	deine	deines	deine
Dative	deinem	deiner	deinem	deinen
Genitive	deines	deiner	deines	deiner
	Masculine	Feminine	Neuter	Plural
Nominative	ihrer	ihre	ihres	ihre
Accusative	ihren	ihre	ihres	ihre
Dative	ihrem	ihrer	ihrem	ihren
Genitive	ihres	ihrer	ihres	ihrer
	Masculine	Feminine	Neuter	Plural
Nominative	eurer	eure	eures	eure
Accusative	euren	eure	eures	eure
Dative	eurem	eurer	eurem	euren
Genitive	eures	eurer	eures	eurer

Note: The neuter gender in the nominative and the accusative case can also use eins in place of eines.

 

Nouns

 

Only the following nouns are declined according to case:

• Masculine weak nouns gain an -n (sometimes -en) at the end in cases other than the singular nominative.
• The genitive case of other nouns of masculine or neuter gender is formed by adding -s (sometimes -es).
• Nouns in plural that do not already end in -n or -s (the latter found in loanwords) gain an -n in the dative case.

There is a dative singular marking -e associated with strong masculine or neuter nouns, e.g. der Tod and das Bad, but this is nearly obsolete in contemporary usage, with the exception of fossilized phrases, such as zum Tode verurteilt ("sentenced to death"), or titles of creative works, e.g. Venus im Bade ("Venus In The Bath").

 

Pronouns

 

Personal pronouns

Genitive case for personal pronouns is currently considered archaic and is used only in certain archaic expressions like Ich bedarf seiner. ("I need him."). This is not to be confused with possessive adjectives.

Nominative	Accusative	Genitive	Dative
ich - I	mich - me	meiner	mir - to/for me
du - you (familiar singular)	dich - you	deiner	dir - to/for you
er - he	ihn - him	seiner	ihm - to/for him
sie - she	sie - her	ihrer	ihr - to/for her
es - it	es - it	seiner	ihm - to/for it
wir - we	uns - us	unser	uns - to/for us
ihr - you (familiar plural)	euch - you	eurer	euch - to/for you
Sie - you (formal singular and plural)	Sie - you	Ihrer	Ihnen - to/for you
sie - they	sie - them	ihrer	ihnen - to/for them

Note that er and sie can refer to any masculine or feminine noun, not just persons. When they refer to inanimate objects, they would be properly translated "it".

 

Interrogative pronouns

	Nominative	Accusative	Genitive	Dative
Personal ("who/whom")	wer	wen	wessen	wem
Impersonal ("what")	was	was	-	-

There is neither a dative nor a genitive of the impersonal interrogative pronoun. Generally, prepositions that need to be followed by either case merge with was to form new words such as wovon ("whereof") or weswegen ("for what reason").

 

Relative pronouns

	Masculine	Feminine	Neuter	Plural
Nominative	der	die	das	die
Accusative	den	die	das	die
Dative	dem	der	dem	denen
Genitive	dessen	deren	dessen	deren

 

Possessive pronouns

Possessive pronouns (Possessivartikel) are treated as articles in German and decline the same way as kein, see Indefinite articles above.

 

Demonstrative pronouns

These may be used in place of personal pronouns to provide emphasis, as in the sentence Den sehe ich ("I see that"). Also note the word ordering: den corresponds to "that", and ich corresponds to "I". Placing the object at the beginning of the sentence places emphasis on it. English, as a generally non-declined language, does not normally show similar behavior, although it is sometimes possible to place the object at the front of a sentence for similar emphasis, as in: "Him I see, but I don't see John.".

The table is the same as for relative pronouns.

 

Reflexive pronouns

Reflexive pronouns are used when a subject and object are the same, as in Ich wasche mich. ("I wash myself.").

Nominative (Subject)	Accusative (Direct Object)	Dative (Indirect Object)
ich - I	mich - myself	mir - to/for myself
du - you	dich - yourself	dir - to/for yourself
er/sie/es/man - he/she/it/one	sich - himself/herself/itself/oneself	sich - to/for himself/herself/itself/oneself
wir - we	uns - ourselves	uns - to/for ourselves
ihr - you (pl.)	euch - yourselves	euch - to/for yourselves
Sie - you (formal)	sich - yourself/yourselves	sich - to/for yourself/yourselves
sie - they	sich - themselves	sich - to/for themselves

 

Indefinite pronouns

The pronoun man refers to a generic person, and is usually translated as "one" or generic "you". It is equivalent to the French pronoun "on".

Nominative	Accusative	Genitive	Dative
man - one/you/they	einen - one/you/them	sein - one"s/your/their	einem - to/for one/you/them

 

Attributive adjectives

 

Predicate adjectives, e.g. kalt in Mir ist kalt ("I am cold") are undeclined. Attributive adjectives use the following declension patterns.

 

Strong inflection

Strong declension is used when there is no preceding article.

	Masculine	Feminine	Neuter	Plural
Nominative	-er	-e	-es	-e
Accusative	-en	-e	-es	-e
Dative	-em	-er	-em	-en
Genitive	-en	-er	-en	-er

Here is an example.

	Masculine	Feminine	Neuter	Plural
Nominative	grüner Tee	rote Tinte	klares Wasser	alkoholfreie Getränke
Accusative	grünen Tee	rote Tinte	klares Wasser	alkoholfreie Getränke
Dative	grünem Tee	roter Tinte	klarem Wasser	alkoholfreien Getränken
Genitive	grünen Tees	roter Tinte	klaren Wassers	alkoholfreier Getränke

Note that the ending for genitive masculine and neuter is -en. This is a source of confusion for learners, who typically assume it is -es, and also native speakers, who interpret some of the less common definite articles (e.g. jed-) as adjectives with no article, to be declined strongly.

 

Weak inflection

Weak declension is used when there is a preceding definite article ("der-word").

	Masculine	Feminine	Neuter	Plural
Nominative	-e	-e	-e	-en
Accusative	-en	-e	-e	-en
Dative	-en	-en	-en	-en
Genitive	-en	-en	-en	-en

All endings are -en except the highlighted group, which are -e.

	Masculine	Feminine	Neuter	Plural
Nom.	welcher grüne Tee	solche rote Tinte	dieses klare Wasser	alle alkoholfreien Getränke
Acc.	welchen grünen Tee	solche rote Tinte	dieses klare Wasser	alle alkoholfreien Getränke
Dat.	welchem grünen Tee	solcher roten Tinte	diesem klaren Wasser	allen alkoholfreien Getränken
Gen.	welches grünen Tees	solcher roten Tinte	dieses klaren Wassers	aller alkoholfreien Getränke

 

Mixed inflection

Mixed declension is used when there is a preceding indefinite article (i.e. ein, kein), or possessive adjective (mein, dein,...).

	Masculine	Feminine	Neuter	Plural
Nominative	-er	-e	-es	-en
Accusative	-en	-e	-es	-en
Dative	-en	-en	-en	-en
Genitive	-en	-en	-en	-en

Mixed inflection is the same as weak inflection, except highlighted suffixes (masculine nominative, neuter nominative and accusative) that are the same as strong inflection.

	Masculine	Feminine	Neuter	Plural
Nominative	mein grüner Tee	seine rote Tinte	euer klares Wasser	keine alkoholfreien Getränke
Accusative	meinen grünen Tee	seine rote Tinte	euer klares Wasser	keine alkoholfreien Getränke
Dative	meinem grünen Tee	seiner roten Tinte	eurem klaren Wasser	keinen alkoholfreien Getränken
Genitive	meines grünen Tees	seiner roten Tinte	eures klaren Wassers	keiner alkoholfreien Getränke

 

Non-declining geographic attributive adjectives

 

Many German locality names have an attributive adjective associated with them which ends in -er, for example Berliner for Berlin and Hamburger for Hamburg, which are not marked for case but always end in -er. Das Brandenburger Tor ("the Brandenburg Gate") is perhaps the most prominent example of this. Note the -er ending despite the neuter gender of the word Tor. If the place name ends in -en, like Göttingen, the -er usually replaces the terminal -en.

 

 

Modal particle

 

In the German language, a modal particle (Modalpartikel or Abtönungspartikel) is an uninflected word used mainly in spontaneous spoken language in colloquial registers. These words have a dual function: reflecting the mood or attitude of the speaker or narrator, and highlighting the sentence focus.

The effect that a flavoring particle has is often vague and dependent on the overall context. Speakers often use them somewhat excessively, and sometimes combine several particles, as in doch mal, ja nun, or even ja doch nun mal. They are a feature typical of the spoken language.

 

List of modal particles

 

• Halt, eben, einmal (in this context, always unshortened) and nun einmal (shortened: nun mal) imply that the (often unpleasant) fact expressed in a sentence cannot be changed and must be accepted. Halt and nun mal are more colloquial than eben. In English, they could be rendered to "as a matter of fact" or by a "happen to" construction.

Gute Kleider sind eben teuer. ("Good clothes are expensive, it can't be helped.", "Good clothes happen to be expensive.")

Er hat mich provoziert, da habe ich ihn halt geschlagen. ("He provoked me, so I hit him - what did you expect?")

Es ist nun einmal so. ("That's just how it is.")

• Ja ("after all") indicates that the speaker thinks a certain fact should already be known to the listener and intends his statement to be more of a reminder or conclusion.

Ich habe ihm ein Buch geschenkt, er liest ja sehr gerne. ("I gave him a book, as you know he likes to read.")

Ich verleihe kein Geld, das zerstört ja nur Freundschaften. ("I never lend money. Everyone knows that only destroys friendships.")

 

• Einmal, shortened mal (literally "once", translation roughly "for once") also indicates a certain immediacy to the action or even implies a command. On the other hand, it can give a kind of casualness to a sentence and so making it sound less blunt.

Hör mal zu! ("Listen!" or "Listen to me!")

Beeile dich mal! ("Do hurry up!")

Sing mal etwas Schönes! ("Why don't you sing something pretty?")

Schauen wir mal. (lit. "Let's take one look.", meaning: "Let's just relax and then we'll see what we'll be doing.")

• Doch can have several meanings. For one, it can be used affirmatively, or it can convey emphasis, urgency or impatience, or it can serve as a reply to a real or imagined, or pre-emptively answered, disagreement, hesitation, or wrong assumption on the part of the listener, or other people. In other situations this can have different effects.

Gehst Du nicht nach Hause? Doch, ich gehe gleich. ("Are you not going home?" "Oh, yes, I am going in a moment." - affirmation of a negative question, obligatory.)

Komm doch her! ("Do come here!" - emphatically)

Komm doch endlich her! ("Do come on! Get a move on!" - more emphatically and impatiently)

Ich habe dir doch gesagt, dass es nicht so ist. ("I did tell you that it's not like that.")

Ich kenne mich in Berlin aus. Ich war doch letztes Jahr schon dort. ("I know my way around Berlin. I was here last year, after all/as a matter of fact.")

In this way, doch can be similar to schon (indeed), but schon implies an actual qualification of the statement, often made explicit in a phrase with aber ("but"):

Ich war schon auf der Party, aber Spaß hatte ich nicht. ("I was indeed at the party, but I did not enjoy myself.")

This is not to be confused with the literal meaning of, unstressed, schon ("already"). However, at least in writing schon must either be made unmistakable by the context, e. g. by additional adverbs, or replaced by its equivalent bereits.

Ich war schon (bereits) auf der Party, aber Spaß hatte ich (noch) nicht. ("I was already at the party, but I had not [yet] been enjoying myself.")

In other contexts, doch indicates that the action described in the sentence was, in fact, unlikely to occur:

Du bist also doch gekommen! ("You came after all.")

Ich sehe nicht viel fern, aber wenn etwas Gutes kommt, schalte ich doch ein. ("I don't watch much TV, but I do tune in if something good comes on.")

• Aber, when not used as a conjunction, is very similar to doch. It conveys a meaning of disagreement to a previously-stated assertion.

Du sprichst aber schon gut Deutsch! ("On the contrary, you speak very good German!")

• Sowieso, ohnehin or eh, meaning "anyway(s)", implies an emphasized assertion. Especially in the South, eh is colloquially most common. All these can be enforced by a preceding doch.

Ich hab ihm eh gesagt, dass er sich wärmer anziehen soll. ("I told him to put on warmer clothes in the first place.")

Das ist eh nicht wahr. ("That's not true anyway.")

• Vielleicht, as a modal particle, is used for emphasis and should not be confused with the adverb vielleicht (meaning "perhaps"):

Das ist vielleicht ein großer Hund! ("That's quite a large dog!")

But: Vielleicht ist das ein großer Hund. Es ist schwer zu erkennen. ("Maybe that's a large dog. It's difficult to tell.")

• Fei (which is no longer recognized as the adverb fein, finely) is a particle peculiar to Upper German dialects. It denotes that the speaker states something important that might be a surprise for the listener. To give an adequate translation even into Standard German is difficult, probably, the best try is to use understatements with strong affirmative meaning. In English, translations to "I should think" or "just to mention" seem possible, varying from context.

Des kosch fei net macha! (Swabian) = Das kannst du (eigentlich wirklich) nicht machen. ("You can't do that! / If you do look at it, you really can't do that. / You can't, I should think, do that.")

I bin fei ned aus Preissen! (Bavarian) = Ich bin, das wollte ich nur einmal anmerken, nicht aus Preußen. ("Just to mention, I'm not from Prussia.")

• Wohl is often used instead of epistemic adverbs, such as vermutlich or wahrscheinlich. It also used to emphasize a strong disagreement. Literal translation with "probably" or at least with "seemingly" is possible.

Es wird wohl Regen geben. ("It looks like rain. / It's probably going to rain.")

Du bist wohl verrückt! ("You must be out of your mind.")