Yes, there are 16 different ways, but there is reason behind most of them. You didn’t think you’d get through a list of tips to learn German without one on der, die and das, did you? You’ll hear people say that there are 16 ways to say “the” and that there’s no rhyme and no reason to which nouns are der, which are die and which are das. This focus on modal verbs helped me strike up conversations quickly in German, Italian and French when I first started learning. (“I can play football later.”) Yes, you’ll have lots of gaps in your vocabulary and grammar, but at least you’ll be able to form some simple, useful and whole sentences. (“I could play football (yesterday).”) Or add an adverb to denote future: Ich kann später Fußball spielen. ![]() If you’re feeling ambitious, conjugate the verb in past tense: Ich konnte (gestern) Fußball spielen. Imagine the range of things you can communicate simply by combining these infinitives with the two modal verbs können (“can”) and müssen (“must/have to”). Learn the verbs gehen (“to go”), spielen (“to play”) and lernen (“to learn”). If you learn the conjugation of these verbs along with some of the most frequently-used verbs, you’ll be able to express a broad range of things. Just like in English, the German modal verbs couple up with the infinitive, and they can give you a strong degree of fluency from the very beginning. ![]() What are modal verbs and why are they so cool? Modal verbs are those oh-so-common verbs - can, must, might, may - which express ideas of possibility, permission, desire and obligation. I’ll explain further in the next few tips. If that all sounds like grammatical mumbo-jumbo to you, don’t worry. This approach isn’t only valid for article-noun collocation, but also for almost every other aspect of German, whether it be sentence structure in subordinate clauses or how certain prepositions collocate with certain cases. Learning words in their grammatical context is vital to avoiding confusion and inaccuracy further down the line. So when you learn that table is Tisch, make sure you also learn that a table is masculine, so it’s der Tisch. And that the mug on the table is feminine. It’s a very good idea to learn all your nouns with the article from the very beginning. As you probably know, German nouns are either masculine, feminine or neuter: der, die and das respectively. The German language gets significantly easier once you’ve scaled the first few conceptual mountains. In German, you’ll undoubtably be presented with some mind-boggling grammar early on. ![]() Our Best Tips To Learn German Always Learn New Words In Their Natural Environment I’ve collated these tips from six years of language teaching, seven years of learning (it never stops!) and speaking German, and plenty of experience with different resources and methods. English, on the other hand, is riddled with inconsistencies, some utterly non-sensical spelling and a lot of bizarrely fragile tense forms, all of which can trip up even the most experienced learners.Īll you need, then, is a little help to figure out the parts that give most learners trouble. ![]() With a few specific tips to learn German, though, you’ll leap over the hurdles to start learning the language.īecause yes, German does present you with 16 different ways to say “the,” and sometimes it has little regard for sensible sentence structure. True, it’s got quite a reputation, perhaps best enshrined by more than a few unflattering Mark Twain quotes. But allow me to let you in on a little secret: German isn’t that difficult. The Germans are fond of saying, Deutsche Sprache, schwere Sprache, (“German language, difficult language”), often with a hint of Schadenfreude in their voices.
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