Essential German Grammar

Part III: Learn German Grammar for free

Find here our third part of essential german grammar. The German language has its basic parts like any language. Nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs and such all play similar parts in german as they perform in other languages. If you take the time to learn the german rules, you will find it much easier to learn the language.



In case you have any grammmar questions be free to ask in our form at the bottom of this page.

essential german grammar: Nouns

German nouns are assigned one of three grammatical genders (masculine, feminine and neuter). The gender decides which of three declensions will be used (der, die and das).

The gender assigned to nouns will go on to influence adjectives, articles and pronouns that are used. The gender of a noun may not be the same as the sex of the object described.

An example would be das Fräulein (young woman), which uses the neuter gender, rather than the feminine "die," which is pronounced "dee." The case and number will also affect the declension.

Articles and Article–like Words

Articles come in strong or weak strengths. Some are also determined to be strong or weak depending on the cases involved. Inflected forms of articles will depend on case, number and gender of the noun in question. Articles always have the same plural forms regardless of gender.

Exampels:

die Tasche - die Taschen
der Tisch - die Tische
der Stuhl - die Stühle
der Frosch - die Frösche
das Haus - die Häuser

Adjectives

German adjectives normally are placed before the noun they affect. To use the adjectives correctly, the number, gender and case of the nominal phrase must be considered along with the article of the noun in question.

Adjectives in German commonly add an ending before the noun. In singular, you add an –e and in plural you add –en. Participles may also be used as adjectives. Unlike the Romance languages, German adjectives are only declined in the attributive position. This means they are only declined when they are placed in nominal phrases which directly describe a noun.

Pronouns

Pronouns in the German language can be in first person, second person or third person. The first person pronouns refer to the speaker, the second person refers to the person being addressed and the third person can replace nominal phrases. Third person pronouns will have the same case, number and gender of the nominal phrase being replaced.

Personal Pronouns

Personal pronouns are changed slightly depending on the case, the gender and the number. For example, the first person singular pronoun is "ich" in the nominative case, "mich" in the accusative case, "mir" in the dative case and "meiner" in the genitive case.

Third person singular also changed depending on the gender, using er, sie or es as the nominative case depending on whether it is masculine, feminine or neuter.

Adverbial Phrases

Adverbs modify the meaning of verbs, so an adverbial phrase is a combination of words that serve to modify the meaning of the verb. There are many different types of adverbial phrases in the German language.

These types include native adverbs, accusative nouns with adverbial meanings, adverbial forms of adjectives, prepositional phrases, adverbial clauses and pronominal adverbs. Forming adverbs in German grammar is easier than in some other languages. Adverbs are just the uninflected form of an adjective or participle in most cases.

More Essential German Grammar Rules

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