Archive for 'Language'
Herbstwetter – Fall weather Posted by Sandra Rösner on Oct 20, 2010
In this post I would like to give you the opportunity to read some German. I wrote a letter to an imaginary friend. The reason for my letter is the current fall weather in Germany. I also provide an English translation of my letter so that everybody has the opportunity to check their reading/understanding skills…
“I have no …” – Negations with “kein/keine/keinen/etc.” Posted by Sandra Rösner on Oct 18, 2010
When someone is asking you in German for a particular noun, for example, when you are asked if you have or posses something, e.g. time, a brother, a sister, children, a pen, etc., you have to use a declined form of the word kein in order to negate your statement. For example, when I ask…
Exploring the German letter ß Posted by Sandra Rösner on Oct 12, 2010
The German language has a letter that does not appear in its alphabet: the letter ß. Because of its shape the letter ß can be easily mistaken for a B. The ß, pronounced Eszett, is a ligature of the initial- and inner-s and the final-s of the German type font, which was used from the…
ME & YOU: “mir/dir” OR “mich/dich”? Posted by Sandra Rösner on Oct 6, 2010
Very often I can realize that learners of German struggle with using the correct form of the 1st person and 2nd person personal pronouns in the singular. Both “me” and “you” have each two translations in German. “Me” can mean either mich or mir and “you” can mean either dich or dir. The difference between…
German prepositions that require the accusative case Posted by Sandra Rösner on Sep 13, 2010
This is my final post on prepositions and their required grammar cases. German prepositions that require the accusative case are: bis – until; till entlang – along gegen – against um – for; to; in order; around durch – through für – for ohne – without wider – contrary to Usually, nouns themselves do not…
Do you know “wissen” and “kennen”? Posted by Sandra Rösner on Sep 7, 2010
When I communicate with people who learn German as a foreign language I can often recognize that they have some difficulties with using the German verbs “kennen” and “wissen” correctly. Unfortunately, these two verbs have only one translation in English, which is “to know”. Although “wissen” suggest the meaning of having a firm knowledge and…
Prepositions that require the DATIVE CASE Posted by Sandra Rösner on Sep 1, 2010
In one of my previous posts I started discussing about prepositions and which grammar cases they require for the following noun. In this post I am going to give some examples sentence with very common prepositions that require the DATIVE CASE. The German prepositions, which require the dative case are: aus, bei, mit, von, seit…