Notes

Clickable Topic Links (Find the flag for the most recent notes)

Reading Strategies What a "doosy"! Numbers - 1...ah... Are we there yet? Telling time... Questions - What kinds are there? The words for 'The'- What do you mean there's more than one? der, die, das - How can I remember? Wha...? Whe...? How...? What exactly is an "a"? Verb Endings - Who's doing what? Word Order- Where does the verb go? To be or not to be? The "Haves" & the "have-nots" Who's giving the orders around here? (Commands Review: Word Order (V2L) Review: Noun Use

Lesen - Reading

1. Non-verbal clues
   • Pictures tell a lot about the topic, before you even begin reading…
   • Headline (LARGER TEXT, boldface type, italics , etc.)
2. Numbers… are easy to read. Look at the words around the number to
   see if you can guess it’s meaning (does it tell you how many, how big,
   how often, how much, etc.)
   
3. International Words
   • Olympiade: Olympics
   • Beginn: begin? begin /beginning (Nouns are always capitalized)
   • perfekt: perfect
   • Nationen: nation? nation /nations (see the -en ending?)
   • Präsident: president (Don’t let vowels fool you!)
   • Ende: end
   • Athletinnen: athletes (the -innen ending means they are all women)
   • Zeremonie: (Say a word out loud to help you guess it’s meaning)

What...a "doosy!" (Du oder Sie?)

• to friends
• to pets
• to family
• while praying

• to adults
• to shopkeepers
• to teachers
• etc.

• college age and under? always use “du”.
• When in doubt - start with “Sie, and let them ask for “du”.

Numbers

Time

• Telling time in German means thinking the way a German thinks about time.
• That means that the first hour after 12:00 is called hour "one". It doesn't sound so different, but in English when we express 12:30, we say "half past 12".
• To express the time in German, consider, that once 12:01 is reached, you've entered hour "one".
• Since this is so, you will remember that a German expresses 12:30, as "half of one" (Halb eins).
• So..
  Halb = "half of [the next hour]..."

Questions

• Those with question words (aka. "W-questions")
• See the list of question words.
• Those without questions words (aka. "Yes-No Questions")
• There is no "do", "does", or "ing" in German.
  Ex. Does dad have money?="Hat Vati Geld?"

The Word "the"

• Again, the words "der", "die", "das" all just mean "the".
• There is NO (okay, almost no) logical reason for a word to belong to one group over the others.
• The word "the" must therefore be memorized with each new noun learned.

Guessing Strategies for der/die/das

There are a few clues:
• Words ending in “-e” are almost always die-words
• Words ending in “-schaft” are always die-words
• Words (which are a person's title)ending in “-in” are always die-words
• Words ending in “-chen” are always das-words
• Words (which are a person's title)ending in “-er” are der-words
• Words for men, boys and male titles (brother, father, uncle) are der-words
• Words for women, girls and female titles (mother, daughter, aunt) are die-words

Question words

"Ein-Words"

• In German, the word "a" or "an" must match the form of the noun's der/ die/ das.
• Das ist ein Computer. (der)
• Das ist ein Telefon. (das)
• Das ist eine Schreibmaschine. (die)
  
• If there is a der- or das-noun and you want to 'generalize' it (i.e. you want to say "a" or "an"), then you use ,ein.
• If the noun is a die-noun, use eine.
  

Verb Endings

• In German, the "doers" of the action and the "action words" (verbs) must match.

  My mother	gives	me money.
  "doer" (SUBJECT)	"action word" (VERB)

• Although English only has one 'verb-ending' (e.g. she gives.), German has several:

  ich		I		-e		wir		we		-en
  du		you (one friend)		-st		ihr		you ('you guys')		-t
  er sie es		he she it		-t		sie, Sie		they, you (adults)		-en

• Verb Conjugation
  The “conjugation” idea is simply understood by looking at the examples below.
  

  Example#1:	I goes to the store.
  Example#2:	He goes to his mother’s house.
  Example#3:	Wie heisst du?
  Example#4:	Ich heisse Peter.

• Verb endings sometimes change, based on who is doing the action.
  

  How to change a verb:
  Choose an action word	wohnen (to live)
  Chop off the “en” ending from the dictionary form	WOHN-
  Figure out who is living	Ich
  add the proper ending to the verb	-e for ich (See chart below)
  Ich wohne…

  
  

  What to change it to…
  For each of the following do-ers, there is a different ending…
  ich	-e
  du	-st
  er sie es	-t

• The endings have no meaning by themselves, but must match the do-er in the sentence.
  

  Doers
  The doers are…
  ich	I
  du	you* - one friend, family member, etc.
  er	he
  sie	she
  es	it

Word Order

• In normal German statements, the verb always goes second or last.
  ex. Ich bin 12.
• In "W-questions" (who, what, when, etc.) the verb goes second.
  ex. Wie alt bist du?
• In "Yes-No questions", the verb goes first.
  ex. Bist du 10?

To be or not to be...

The "Haves" and the "have-nots"

• However it is irregular only in a few forms (two, actually).
• The two forms are placed over a green-colored background on the table below.
• It is the first of a set of verbs, we will call "Hatchet" verbs.
• (A hatchet is a camping axe used to chop wood.)
• Where we normally "CHOP" off the endings of a verb, and add verb endings...
• A 'hatchet-verb' does so only in the following bold forms:

ich	habe	wir	haben
du	hast	ihr	habt
er	hat	sie	haben
sie
es		Sie

Who's giving the orders around
here? (Commands)

 
Heading
 

 
Heading
 

 
Heading
 

Word Order Review

• The doers usually come first.
• The verb comes second.
• Some of the ‘more important’ words come last (especially when they relate to the action.)
• Doers don’t come first in questions.
• Doers go third when a time , place , or a question word come first.
• To emphasize something, put it (the detail) first, and then shift the doer to third position.

Noun Review

1. Nouns…

   Nouns are

   people, places, events, things, ideas

   They

   are always CAPITALIZED in German

   all have gender…

   ”der, die, das”

   
   

   How do I Remember?
   Associate a picture of every newly-learned noun with a picture of one of the following things. Use these three or three others, but use the same three images for der, die and das all the time
   DER	DIE	DAS
   Der Elefant, Der Bleistift, Der Kuli…	Die Tänzerin, Die Gitarre, Die Schultasche…	Das Haus, Das Buch, Das Lineal

   
   
2. Case…

   Case means…

   use

   job in a sentence

   function of a noun

   The uses of nouns are…

   DOER, or subject sometimes called Nominative in the index, for example

   DONE-TO, or direct object sometimes called Accusative

   RECEIVER

   OWNER

   PREPOSITIONAL NOUNS, all of which we will discuss next year

3. Subject…or Doer
   The doer in a sentence is easily identified by asking the following questions:

   What is the action? WHO or WHAT is doing the action?

   
   The doer is doing!
   In German, the doer is shown (not by word order, as in English) by means of the form of the word “the”:

   der	for der words masculine
   die	for die words feminine
   das	for das words neuter
   die	for all words plural

4. Object…or Done-tofor this year
   The done-to noun in a sentence is easily identified by asking the above questions, and adding one more:

   What is the action? WHO or WHAT is doing the action? WHOM or WHAT is being acted on?

   
   The done-to is having somethingdone toit!
   In German, the done-to is also shown (not by word order, as in English) by means of the form of the word “the”:

   den	for der words masculine
   die	for die words feminine
   das	for das words neuter
   die	for all words plural