Grammatik — Grammar
Grammar in context, level by level
Short explanations, clear tables, and example sentences that show the rule in action — from your first articles to the particles that make German sound German.
- 01
Personal Pronouns: ich, du, Sie
Who is who in a German sentence — and the difference between du and Sie, the most socially loaded choice in the language.
- 02
The Present Tense (Präsens)
One tense covers both 'I learn' and 'I am learning'. Master sein and haben first, then the regular pattern.
- 03
der, die, das — Noun Gender
Every German noun has a gender. Learn the articles, why guessing fails, and which endings give the gender away.
- 04
Nominative and Accusative
The two cases you need for your first real sentences: who does something, and what it happens to.
- 05
Plurals: Five Ways to Say 'More Than One'
English adds -s and moves on. German has five plural patterns — plus a trick for guessing the right one.
- 06
Possessive Articles: mein, dein, sein, ihr
My, your, his, her — the little words that let you talk about your family, your city, and your stuff.
- 07
nicht and kein: Saying No Properly
German has two words for 'not'. Picking the right one is the difference between 'I don't drink coffee' and nonsense.
- 08
Asking Questions: W-Words and the Verb Flip
Everything you need to become the person who can actually find the bathroom, the train, and the price of a coffee.
- 09
The Imperative: Giving Instructions
Commands, requests, and polite instructions — from 'Kommen Sie bitte herein' to 'Pass auf!'
- 10
Numbers, Time, and Dates
Count, tell the time, and book appointments — including the famous 'halb drei' trap.
- 11
es gibt and the Survival Patterns
'There is' in German — plus the handful of fixed patterns that cover hunger, cold, and wellbeing.
- 12
Word Order: the Verb Comes Second
German is less free than it looks. One rule explains statements, questions and the famous 'inversion'.
- 13
Modal Verbs: können, müssen, wollen
Can, must, want — the six verbs that let you express desire and obligation long before you can conjugate anything else.
- 14
The Perfekt: Talking About the Past
How to say what you did yesterday — the tense Germans use for almost everything they say about the past.
- 15
war and hatte: The Two-Word Past
sein and haben refuse to use the Perfekt in everyday speech — their short past forms war and hatte are all the Präteritum an A1 speaker needs.
- 16
The Dative: dem, der, den — and mir, dir, ihm
The third case, survival edition: helping, thanking, and saying how you feel. A2 takes the full tour.
- 17
Prepositions: Where, When, and With Whom
in, mit, nach, zu and friends — the little words that connect your sentences to the world.
- 18
und, aber, oder: Building Longer Sentences
Three little words that connect your short sentences into real German — without touching the word order.
- 19
Ordinal Numbers and Dates
first, second, third — how Germans say dates, birthdays, and appointments without a calendar in hand.
- 20
The Zero Article: When German Needs Nothing
Sometimes the right article is no article at all — professions, nationalities, and things in general.
- 01
The Perfekt: Talking About Yesterday
The conversational past tense — how Germans actually tell you what they did on the weekend.
- 02
The Präteritum: The Written Past
The written past tense — and the verbs you need it for even when speaking.
- 03
The Dative: The Case of Giving and Helping
The indirect object, the case after mit and zu, and the reason 'Ich helfe dem Mann' never uses den.
- 04
Comparative and Superlative: gut, besser, am besten
Compare things like a pro — including the handful of irregulars Germans use constantly.
- 05
Subordinate Clauses: weil, dass, wenn
Connect your first complex sentences — and send the verb to the end, where German keeps its plot twists.
- 01
Konjunktiv II: würde, hätte, wäre
The velvet glove of German: polite requests, wishes, and parallel-universe hypotheticals — all handled by one mood.
- 02
Reflexive Verbs: sich freuen, sich erinnern & Co.
Many German verbs point the action back at the doer. Learn the reflexive pronouns, the prepositions that hitch a ride, and the sneaky dative reflexives.
- 03
Adjective Endings Demystified
The most feared table in German, shrunk to one idea: the ending is a signal that broadcasts gender and case — especially when the article refuses to.
- 04
Relative Clauses: der, die, das as Connectors
Relative pronouns are just the definite article in a case costume. Master the comma, the verb-last rule, and start chaining the long, elegant sentences Germans love.
- 05
The Genitive: Possession Like a Local
des Mannes, der Frau, eines Tages — the case that makes German sound grown-up, plus the everyday escape hatch 'von + Dativ' and the prepositions that insist on genitive.
- 01
The Passive — Vorgangspassiv vs. Zustandspassiv
Two passives, one choice: werden for the process, sein for the state. Plus passives with modals and the elegant escape hatches Germans use instead (man, sich lassen, -bar).
- 02
Participles as Adjectives — der singende Vogel, das gekaufte Auto
Partizip I for things in progress, Partizip II for things already done — and how Germans chain them into monster adjectives you can learn to unpack from the inside out.
- 03
Verb Prefixes — Inseparable, Separable, and the Stress-Sensitive Doubles
be-, ver-, er- glue themselves to the verb; auf-, zu-, mit- leap to the end of the sentence. And the tricky doubles (über-, um-, durch-...) decide their behaviour purely by where the stress falls.
- 04
Nominalstil — Turning Sentences into Noun Phrases
German newspapers convert whole clauses into compact noun packages: 'Weil es regnete' becomes 'wegen des Regens'. Learn the preposition swaps and where the verbs hide inside the nouns.
- 05
Beyond weil and denn — The Grown-Up Connectors
zwar ... aber, einerseits ... andererseits, nicht nur ... sondern auch, and the adverbs trotzdem, dennoch, folglich and insofern — with the punctuation traps that come with them.
- 01
Konjunktiv I — Reported Speech Without Gossip
How German reports what someone said without vouching for it: er habe, sie sei gekommen, möge — and when native speakers quietly fall back on Konjunktiv II or plain indicative.
- 02
Funktionsverbgefüge — Sounding Native with Light Verbs
Why Germans treffen a decision instead of treffen-ing a person: the light-verb collocations (eine Entscheidung treffen, Kritik üben, in Kauf nehmen) that turn B2 German into C1 German.
- 03
Nominalstil vs. Verbalstil — Style Switching for Better Writing
Academic German loves to freeze verbs into nouns. Learn when to stack nouns, when to let verbs breathe, and how to convert mechanically between the two styles.
- 04
Extended Participial Attributes — Die vorgeschlagene Reform
Formal German hides entire relative clauses inside noun phrases. Learn to build them — and, more importantly, to unpack the 'die von der Kommission vorgeschlagene Reform' monsters on sight.
- 01
Modalpartikeln — The Soul of Spoken German
Doch, mal, ja, halt, eben, wohl, schon: the tiny words that turn correct German into German that sounds like a human said it. Learn what each one actually does to a sentence.
- 02
Register and Style — The Same Message, Three Costumes
Formal, colloquial and literary German are three wardrobes for the same body. Learn to switch deliberately: when Sie beats du, when 'Meeting' is fine, and how a novel says what an email never would.
- 03
Shades of Meaning — Advanced Synonym Nuance
wissen/kennen, tun/machen, schön/hübsch/gut aussehend, sterben/versterben/ums Leben kommen, and the triple trap annehmen/entgegennehmen/unterstellen. Near-synonyms are where C2 is won or lost.