When i was learning German in school I never understood the grammar. All the different rules of when the article changes and so on always confused me. These four tips have helped improve my German and are so easy to remember! Let me know if they help you too.

Photo by fdecomite on Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

1. What article to use when using plural

The easiest thing to remember is that the article always changes to “die” when using plural. The noun however almost always changes, either adding an -en, -e, -s or -er but the article will always be “die” when using plural (in the nominative form). Here are some examples:

Singular                           Plural                          English
der Tisch                    die Tische                  the table(s)
die Tür                       die Türen                   the door(s)
der Kuchen                die Kuchen                the cake
der Teilnehmer       die Teilnehmer       the participant(s)

2. When the verb automatically goes to the end of a sentence

If you are using “weil” (because) or “dass” (that) in a sentence the verb will always goes to the end. Here are some examples:

Ich liebe heisse Schokolade, weil sie cremig ist
I love hot chocolate because it is creamy
Ich mag Montags nicht, weil ich früh aufstehen muss
I don’t like Mondays because I have to get up early
Ich glaube, dass du mir nicht zuhörst
I think that you aren’t listening to me
Ich möchte, dass du ins Bett gehst
I would like you to go to bed

3. How to pronounce “ie” and “ei”

Not directly grammar, but still a good rule to learn when speaking German. The trick is to always look at and pronounce the second letter. For example, das Ei (the egg) has the letter “i” second, which means you pronounce it as you would say the letter “I” {eye} . The word die Biene (the bee) has the “e” after the “i” which means you pronounce it as the letter “e” {ee}.

4. All nouns have a capital letter
Unlike in English where only proper nouns have a capital letter; every object in German has a capital letter. For example.

der Boden                 the floor
die Tasse                   the cup
die Kartoffeln          the potatoes

I think one of the biggest things that helped my German become fluent is to not over think it, if you’re in a conversation you don’t have enough time to keep thinking “is that der, die or das?” and so on. If I’m unsure then I look up the grammar rule later.

I hope you enjoyed the post!
Larissa