Just when German is starting to make sense, you’re thrown another curveball: the elements of German sentences can move around … a lot.
We’re not used to this! To our English brains, having words swap places in a sentence drastically changes what is being said (including the option of the final result being utter nonsense).
So, when we try to translate a German sentence word-for-word into English, we can end up with some wonky, confusing sentences. It’s easy to feel lost, fast.
One of the classic mistakes made by German learners is assuming that German grammatically functions the same way English does (<-- nope!!!
One of the areas where the differences are most obvious is with sentence structure, which — in German — can seem pretty funky to a native English speaker.
This guide will give you the necessary bird’s eye view of the components of a German sentence and the order in which you must put them.
The nominative case is the subject of the sentence — is the person, place, thing, idea, etc. that is doing something.
Example:
What is the deal with German adjective endings?!
Why do we have to put -m, -n, -r, -s, -e onto the ends of adjectives? And how do we know which one to use when?!
Learning German adjective endings is crucial to speaking German well … but it can feel so random, nonsensical, and overwhelming.
I have good news … you’re likely doing it all wrong! 🙃
Like the genitive case as a whole, genitive prepositions are a sticky subject.
Some genitive prepositions are still used, but more and more are replaced by dative constructions. How does one know when to use what? (<-- we’ll talk about that!)
At this point in your German-learning journey, you’ve probably got a good sense for accusative and dative prepositions (<– if not, start there!).
But now there’s a whole category of prepositions that switch back-and-forth between the accusative (when indicating direction) and dative (when indicating location)?! *facepalm*
Nah, actually it’s not that bad. 😉
No language-learning is complete without tackling prepositions. They are pretty necessary little words that add important info on when, where, how and with whom things are done!
Prepositions are little words such as with, for, against, to, on, over, under, in, behind, between, through, etc. that we use all. the. time. in both English & German.
When you first start learning German, you realize fast that you can’t get far without learning prepositions.
Prepositions are little words such as with, for, against, to, on, over, under, in, behind, between, through, etc. that we use all. the. time. in both English & German!
Reflexive pronouns are used to refer back to a person already mentioned.
Most of the time, you’ll use reflexive pronouns to indicate that the subject of the sentence is doing something to himself or herself, e.g.
I cry myself to sleep at night.
Below, we’ll compare how it works in English vs German and much more.
If you’re looking into relative pronouns, you’re starting to really advance your German skills!
Using relative pronouns (and the relative clauses they introduce) is a nice way to add some sophistication to your German writing & speaking.
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