German Language Blog
Menu
Search

Search Results

German ordinal numbers in use: Choosing the proper gender, grammatical case, and number (pt. I) Posted by on Nov 9, 2011

Ordinal numbers are not as common as cardinal numbers. But you need to use them whenever you express things that occur in an order or series. For example, in a hotel you may discover that your room is on the eighth floor. To properly use ordinals in German, you have to consider that ordinal numbers…

Continue Reading

German ordinal numbers in use: Choosing the proper gender, grammatical case, and number (pt. I) Posted by on Nov 9, 2011

Ordinal numbers are not as common as cardinal numbers. But you need to use them whenever you express things that occur in an order or series. For example, in a hotel you may discover that your room is on the eighth floor. To properly use ordinals in German, you have to consider that ordinal numbers…

Continue Reading

“I have no …” – Negations with “kein/keine/keinen/etc.” Posted by 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…

Continue Reading

ME & YOU: “mir/dir” OR “mich/dich”? Posted by 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…

Continue Reading

Prepositions that require the genitive case Posted by on Aug 11, 2010

In my previous post, I explained to you the basic idea of the four German grammar cases. Remember: DOER-noun = nominative (carries out the action) POSSESSION-noun = genitive (belongs to DOER, INSTRUMENT or TARGET) INSTRUMENT-noun = dative (with what the action is carried out) TARGET-noun = accusative (receives the action) Unfortunately, the German language is…

Continue Reading

WHO is doing that to WHOM with WHAT and WHOSE is it at all? – The four German cases Posted by on Aug 6, 2010

Most learners of German seem to struggle with the language’s grammar cases. In this post I am going to explain why these cases exist and what they mean. The crucial element of every sentence is the verb, since it names a particular action. In this action, there are always specific subjects and objects (nouns) involved…

Continue Reading

Newer posts