“Grammar” is the word we use to talk about “how words fit together to change meaning”.
When we combine words into sentences, we use grammar to show how those words connect and interact. One of the things that makes toddlers difficult to understand is that they frequently don’t use grammar…
"BLUE!" "Yes, sweetie, good job!” That car is blue."
Most traditional language learning methods want you to drill and practice German grammar before you really understand anything. This primer is different.
German grammar rules are very complicated and difficult to grasp, even for native speakers.
But learners can fully understand German even if they don't know all of the underlying grammar rules. The brain is a natural pattern-recognition machine and is capable of picking up these rules subconsciously, as long as it receives enough comprehensible input.
This primer will explain the main things you should be aware of before going into German so that it’s easier to understand.
If you’ve ever played “Mad Libs”, you might remember that nouns are the “things” we talk about. People, places, ideas, and stuff. All German nouns are written with a capital letter, no matter where they are in the sentence, so it makes finding them super easy!
But there are a few things about nouns you will want to keep in mind:
All nouns fall into one of three categories. These are masculine, feminine, and neuter.
| Gender | Word | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Masculine | der Hund | the dog (hound) |
| Feminine | die Katze | the cat |
| Neuter | das Schaf | the sheep |
As you can see above, the word “the” changed for each word. This will change often. This can be disconcerting, especially for beginners, because it feels like words are changing at random. It’s not random, but you don’t need to know exactly what’s going on in order to understand the sentence.
Here’s an example of some changes:
| Gender | Phrase | Meaning | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Masculine | mit dem braunen Hund | with the brown dog | der turns into dem, en is added to braun |
| Feminine | mit der braunen Katze | and the brown cat | die turns into der, en is added to braun |
| Neuter | mit dem braunen Schaf | over the brown sheep | das turns into den, en is added to braun |
This may seem daunting, but these changes start to make a lot more sense once you’ve spent more time with German. For now, just allow yourself to think, “oh look! That changed. I still understand, though!”