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Archive for 'Grammar'

Easy ways to ask questions in German Posted by on May 21, 2012

In order to be able to ask questions in German it is not necessary that you know a particular sentence structure for questions. There are several easy ways to start off your question formation.   I. Intonation One way of asking questions in German easily is intonation. Just like in English, and probably in many…

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Key: German weak verbs Posted by on May 9, 2012

My last post was about German weak verbs. In addition to the explanation how to conjugate weak verbs in German, I gave you an exercise where you had to fill in the blanks with the correct conjugated forms of the verbs used in the example sentences. Following you find the key to the exercise, the…

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The English verb “to go to” and its German equivalents – part 2 Posted by on Feb 29, 2012

In my last post I began to tell about the three possible German translations of English “to go (to)”. Remember that “to go” can be translated as fahren (to drive), fliegen (to fly), and, of course, as gehen (to go). You have to use these three verbs with the German preposition “zu” when you want…

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The English verb “to go to” and its German equivalents – part 1 Posted by on Feb 28, 2012

The English verb phrase “to go to” is a real all-rounder when it comes to tell someone that you are going to a particular destination. You can say that you are going to a friend, to a another city or foreign country, but your interlocutor still does not know how you will get and whether…

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Compound words: Das Fugen-s im Deutschen – The linking “s” in German, part 2 Posted by on Feb 24, 2012

The German language is very productive in compounding words. It is virtually possible to great a never-ending word. Of course, Germans do not carry word compounding to extremes, that is, compound words of everyday language do never consist of more than two or three separate words.   Anyway, this characteristic of the German language can…

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Compound words: Das Fugen-s im Deutschen – The linking “s” in German, part 1 Posted by on Feb 22, 2012

You have probably come across German compound words that are linked with an “s”, called linking “s” in English and Fugen-s in German, for example: die Liebesgeschicht – love story der Gerechtigkeitssinn – sense of justice die Schönheitskur – beauty treatment   But other words do not contain this linking “s”, for example: die Tee-kanne…

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Recognizing neuter nouns in German part 2 Posted by on Feb 17, 2012

In my two last posts I discussed that young living beings, continents, and most country and city names are neuter in German. Now I would like to continue with other rules that make German nouns neuter.   1. Diminutives Common German diminutives are the endings “–chen” and “–lein”. When you add these endings to nouns…

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