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“On me”: “Auf mir” or “auf mich” – German personal pronouns in the dative and accusative case Posted by Sandra Rösner on Jul 31, 2013
I received the question whether it is auf mich or auf mir, which are translated as “on me” in English. The good news is that both forms exist in German and thus they are both correct. The bad news is: Both forms are not interchangeable at will. Which form you have to use is dependent…
German Prepositions: All You Need To Know Posted by Sten on Feb 20, 2020
Hello dear German learners! Have you struggled with prepositions like aus, bei, mit, entlang, anhand, während or wegen? German is famous for being hard – but there are rules for all of it! Let’s have a look at how to use German prepositions and to uncover what preposition to use. Known in German as Präpositionen, prepositions are…
German Articles: All You Need To Know Posted by Sten on Feb 13, 2020
German Artikel (articles) seem quite confusing. The infamous der/die/das scheme spooks many students – but fear not, there is some logic to it all. Let’s have a look at this today! First, an overview Want to go deeper? Check out our free eBook on German basics here! Artikel belong to their corresponding Nomen (noun). They’re helpful to identify what Nomen is being referred to…
The German Word Eselsbrücke (Mnemonic) Posted by Constanze on May 3, 2019
Guten Tag! Today we are going to look at the German word die Eselsbrücke, and what it means. Not only is it an interesting word, but an Eselsbrücke is something that might even help you with your language learning! Die Eselsbrücke literally translates to ‘the donkey bridge’. Its actual translation in English, however, is mnemonic…
German adjectives, part 2 – The weak declension Posted by Sandra Rösner on Jun 22, 2012
In my last post I began to talk about forming simple sentences with adjectives in German. You learned that there is no need to decline adjectives in so-called “to be” sentences or, in other words, when you put the adjective after the noun. Unfortunately, things are getting more complicated when you want to put the…
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…