German Grammar Made Easy

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Cover Title Copyright CONTENTS Introduction A simple guide to the parts of speech 1 Verbs 1.1 Talking about what you do 1.1.1 What is the infinitive? 1.1.2 What is the stem of a verb? 1.1.3 The ‘persons’ of the verb 1.1.4 Weak verbs (regular verbs) 1.1.5 Strong verbs (irregular verbs) 1.1.6 Auxiliary verbs: sein – to be, haben – to have 1.2 Reflexive, separable and modal verbs 1.2.1 Reflexive verbs 1.2.2 Separable and inseparable verbs 1.2.3 Modal verbs 1.2.4 Fast track: verbs 1.3 The present tense 1.3.1 Talking about yourself: ich 1.3.2 Talking to someone younger or someone you know well: du 1.3.3 Talking about someone or something else: er/sie/es 1.3.4 Talking about yourself and someone else: wir 1.3.5 Talking to someone else: Sie (you) 1.3.6 Talking to someone else: ihr (you) 1.3.7 Talking to more than one person: Sie (you) 1.3.8 Talking about other people and things: sie (they) 1.3.9 Fast track: present tense 1.4 The past tenses 1.4.1 The perfect tense 1.4.2 Formation of the perfect tense 1.4.3 The auxiliary verbs: haben and sein 1.4.4 Verbs with haben and sein 1.4.5 Sentences with haben and sein 1.4.6 How to form the past participle 1.4.7 The past participle of strong verbs 1.4.8 The past tense and word order 1.4.9 Asking a question about the past 1.4.10 The simple past tense/imperfect tense 1.4.11 Formation of the simple past or imperfect tense 1.4.12 The use of modal verbs in the past tense 1.4.13 Fast track: past tense 1.5 Negatives, interrogatives and imperatives 1.5.1 Negatives: how to say what you do or don’t want using nicht 1.5.2 Negatives: with kein and keine, etc. 1.5.3 Interrogatives: asking questions 1.5.4 Imperatives: giving orders, directions or instructions 1.5.5 Fast track: negatives, interrogatives and imperatives 1.6 The future tense and the conditional 1.6.1 The future tense with werden 1.6.2 Future tense using the present tense 1.6.3 The conditional: I would – Ich würd/Ich hätte 1.6.4 How to form the conditional 1.6.5 Polite requests and useful phrases: hätte gerne 1.6.6 Fast track: the future and conditional 1.7 Useful expressions using verbs 1.7.1 Special uses of haben 1.7.2 There is/are: es gibt 1.7.3 To know: wissen, kennen 1.7.4 To like: mögen and gerne 1.7.5 To remember: sich erinnern 1.7.6 To take: nehmen or bringen 1.7.7 More negative expressions 1.7.8 Since: seit 1.7.9 Fast track: useful expressions using verbs 1.8 Word order 1.8.1 Word order 1: Subject verb object using the present tense 1.8.2 Word order 2: Subject verb object using the imperfect tense 1.8.3 Word order 3: Subject verb object + second verb/past participle etc. 1.8.4 Word order 4: Inverted word order: Time/manner/place, verb, subject, object 1.8.5 Word order 5: Time, manner, place in longer sentences 1.8.6 Word order 6: Co-ordinating conjunctions: and – und, but – aber 1.8.7 Word order 7: Subordinating conjunctions: because – weil, that – dass 1.8.8 Word order 8: Talking about the past using subordinate clauses 1.8.9 Word order 9: The position of the direct and indirect object 2 Nouns and Determiners 2.1 Nouns and gender 2.1.1 Nouns and der, die, das 2.1.2 Some useful ways to tell whether a noun is masculine, feminine or neuter 2.1.3 Different forms for the masculine and feminine 2.2 Nouns in the plural: die 2.2.1 Nouns which add -s in the plural 2.2.2 The plural of masculine nouns 2.2.3 The plural of neuter nouns 2.2.4 The plural of feminine nouns 2.2.5 Nouns which remain the same in both the singular and plural 2.3 Determiners and cases 2.3.1 The: der, die, das and cases 2.3.2 A: ein, eine, ein and cases 2.3.3 Kein: not a, not any, no and cases 2.4 My, your, his, her, etc. 2.4.1 My: mein/meine 2.4.2 Your: dein/deine 2.4.3 His: sein/seine/seinen and her: ihr/ihre/ihren 2.4.4 Our: unser/unsere/unseren 2.4.5 Your: Ihr (polite form) 2.4.6 Your: euer 2.4.7 Their: ihr 2.5 More determiners 2.5.1 Which?: Welche? 2.5.2 Each/every: jeder 2.5.3 Other determiners 2.6 Fast track: nouns and determiners 3 Pronouns 3.1 Ich, du, er, sie, es – I, you, he, she, it: subject pronouns 3.1.1 Ich – I: the first person singular 3.1.2 Du – you: the second person singular 3.1.3 Er/sie/es – he/she/it: the third person singular 3.1.4 Wir – we: the first person plural 3.1.5 Ihr – you 3.1.6 Sie – you (polite form) 3.1.7 Sie – they: the third person plural 3.2 Me, you, him, her, it, us, them 3.2.1 Personal pronouns in the accusative (direct object) 3.3 Mir – to me, ihm – to him, ihr – to her 3.3.1 Personal pronouns in the dative (indirect object) 3.3.2 Verbs which are followed by the dative 3.3.3 Word order of pronouns: direct + indirect 3.4 Reflexive pronouns 3.5 Pronouns and the imperative 3.6 The one who, which, whose: relative pronouns 3.6.1 Relative pronoun replacing the subject (nominative) 3.6.2 Relative pronoun replacing the direct object (accusative) 3.6.3 Relative pronoun replacing the indirect object (dative) 3.6.4 Relative pronouns: deren and dessen (whose) 3.7 Who? whom? – Wer? wen? wem? wessen? 3.8 Das ist meiner – it’s mine, it’s yours 3.9 Fast track: pronouns 4 Adjectives 4.1 What is an adjective? 4.1.1 How to use adjectives 4.1.2 Adjectives placed after the noun they are describing 4.1.3 Adjectives which come in front of the noun 4.1.4 Adjectives after der, die, das, die and dieser (this) 4.1.5 Adjectives after the indirect article 4.1.6 Adjectives describing a noun which has no article 4.2 Big, bigger, biggest: the comparative and superlative 4.2.1 The comparative 4.2.2 The superlative 4.2.3 Saying as (big) as 4.2.4 Fast track: adjectives 5 Adverbs 5.1 Formation of adverbs 5.1.1 Some more useful adverbs 5.1.2 Structure of a sentence beginning with an adverb 6 Prepositions 6.1 Recognising prepositions 6.2 German prepositions 6.2.1 Prepositions followed by the accusative case 6.2.2 Prepositions followed by the dative 6.2.3 Two-way prepositions 6.3 Useful prepositional phrases 6.3.1 Useful expressions to tell you where someone or something is in a building 6.3.2 Saying where you live 6.3.3 Expressions of time Appendix 1: Common irregular verbs Appendix 2: Pronunciation Answers