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Compound words: Das Fugen-s im Deutschen – The linking “s” in German, part 1 Posted by Sandra Rösner 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…
Using apostrophes in German Posted by Sandra Rösner on Feb 20, 2012
One of our Facebook followers asked to do a spell and grammar check of her German composition. She used the greeting “Wie gehts, wie stehts?”, which simply means “How are things?” Immediately, I suggested that she should use apostrophes when using the expression above, and write “Wie geht’s, wie steht’s?” instead. But is her version…
Weibliche Substantive im Deutschen erkennen: Teil 3 – Detecting German feminine nouns: part 3 Posted by Sandra Rösner on Jan 18, 2012
Why are some nouns in German masculine, others feminine, and still others neuter? I am probably not the only one who is asking this question. And to make things worse: there isn’t any logical explanation for that. I pondered over that question quite a long time to give you, at least, a more or less…
German ordinal numbers in use: Choosing the proper gender, grammatical case, and number (pt. II) Posted by Sandra Rösner on Nov 11, 2011
In my last post I discussed what adjectival endings you have to use when you use a noun with a definite article. Remember that ordinal numbers are grammatically nothing else than adjectives. That is, when you embed an ordinal in your sentence you have to modify it like any other adjectives. In this post I…
German ordinal numbers in use: Choosing the proper gender, grammatical case, and number (pt. I) Posted by Sandra Rösner 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…
German ordinal numbers in use: Choosing the proper gender, grammatical case, and number (pt. I) Posted by Sandra Rösner 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…
“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…