A little bit about German grammar

The German language has been around for 1500 years, and has undergone many stages since then. What is known today as High German (Hoch Deutsch) was developed in the early 20th century, although many people speak both this dialect of German and their own, local dialect. There are about 100 million native speakers of German, and about one third of people living in the European Union can converse in German, making it an excellent language to get around in.

The hardest thing about the German language is not the pronunciation, but the fact that it is a lot more specific than English. Nouns, for instance, can take four cases: the nominative, genitive, dative and accusative, and can be in three genders: feminine, masculine, and neutral, which you will then have to match with the proper pronoun. Sound scary? Not really. You are probably already familiar with all of these concepts, you’ve just never thought about how to use them. Here is a general introduction to these words, and you will learn more about them in the lessons ahead.

The nominative case is the topic of your sentence. So, take for example the sentence

I gave a bone to my dog.

“I” is the subject, and is therefore the nominative case.

The genitive case indicates possession, meaning that something belongs to the object or the subject. So in the same sentence, “my dog” will be your genitive.

The dative indicates that something is being given to the noun. Can you guess which one it is?

That’s right! “to my dog” is going to be your dative noun phase in the sentence.

Finally there is the accusative, which is the noun that receives an action. And if you are thinking: “I wonder if it’s the dog again” you are right.

I guess this lends a whole new meaning to the phrase ‘work like a dog.’ But don’t worry, once you’ve been through our lessons, you’ll realize how easy it really is.

Oh, and another thing about nouns? In German, all Nouns are capitalized. No exceptions.

Best Overall German Course: Rocket Languages German

Having been an instructor of German language for many years now, I have come across several German tutorials. These are both in video and audio formats and even in text formats. Yet, I have personally not found a course as good as Rocket German till date.

Many of the modern books that claim to effectively teach German lack contemporary language and real world examples.

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