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Grammar

Short lessons with tables, examples with Otti and his friends, and a few gaps to fill. A lesson takes five minutes.

Level A2

  1. The perfect: ich habe gemacht, ich bin gegangen
    When Germans talk about the past, they mostly use the perfect (Perfekt): a form of haben or sein, and a participle at the end of the sentence.
  2. The simple past: war, hatte, konnte
    For most verbs you use the perfect when you speak. But sein, haben and the modal verbs have their own short past, the simple past (Präteritum), and you hear it every day.
  3. The dative: dem Hund, der Katze, mir
    The dative is the case of the person who receives something or gets help. The articles become dem and der, and the pronouns mir, dir, ihm.
  4. Two-way prepositions: wo? or wohin?
    Nine prepositions can take the dative or the accusative. If something is in a place (wo?), use the dative; if it moves to a place (wohin?), use the accusative.
  5. Prepositions with one case: für, mit, zum
    Some prepositions always take the accusative, others always take the dative. Learn them as two groups, and you never have to guess the case.
  6. Reflexive verbs: ich freue mich
    Some verbs come with a pronoun that points back to the person: ich freue mich, du beeilst dich. Learn the pronouns once, and when to say mir and dir instead.
  7. Subordinate clauses: weil, dass, wenn, ob
    After weil, dass, wenn and ob the verb with the ending goes to the very end, and a comma comes before them. Learn this once, and long sentences get easy.
  8. Comparing: größer als, am größten
    Add -er and als to say more: größer als. Use am and -sten for the most: am größten. With so … wie two things are the same.
  9. Adjective endings: der neue Tisch, ein neuer Tisch
    An adjective before a noun gets an ending. After der, die, das it is mostly -e; after ein it shows whether the noun is der, die or das. After a verb there is no ending.
  10. Polite requests: ich hätte gern, könnten Sie…?
    German has a special verb form for politeness, the Konjunktiv II: möchte, hätte, könnte, würde, wäre. It makes a wish or a question sound soft and friendly.