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PRACTICE
Tips and notes
Welcome to German :)
Welcome to the German course! interested in the details. You can
We will provide you with tips and use the course without them.
notes throughout the course.
However, be aware that these are Often, it's best to just dive into
optional. Only read them when the practice. See how it goes! You
you feel stuck, or when you are can always revisit the Notes
section later on.
Capitalizing nouns
In German, all nouns are apple" is der Apfel. This helps you
capitalized. For example, "my identify which words are the
name" is mein Name, and "the nouns in a sentence.
Verb conjugations
Conjugating regular verbs English German
ending
person example
Verb conjugation in German is
more complex than in English. To I -e ich
conjugate a regular verb in the trinke
present tense, identify the stem of you -st du
the verb and add the ending (singular trinkst
corresponding to any of the informal)
grammatical persons, which you
can simply memorize. For now, he/she/it -t er/sie/es
trinkt
here are the singular forms:
I am ich bin
he/she/it is er/sie/es
ist
Umlauts
Umlauts are letters (more no umlaut umlaut
specifically vowels) that have two
dots above them and appear in a ä
some German words like
o ö
Mädchen.
u ü
Literally, "Umlaut" means "around
the sound," because its function is An umlaut change may change
to change how the vowel sounds. the meaning. That's why it's
important not to ignore those
little dots.
No continuous aspect
In German, there's no continuous When translating into English,
aspect. There are no separate how can I tell whether to use the
forms for "I drink" and "I am simple (I drink) or the continuous
drinking". There's only one form: form (I am drinking)?
Ich trinke.
Unless the context suggests
There's no such thing as Ich bin otherwise, either form should be
trinke or Ich bin trinken! accepted.