Essential
German: Grammar
Appendix
~Verbs~ |
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Present Tense of Regular Verbs To form the present tense of most German verbs, drop the -en from the infinitive and add the regular endings. Take spielen (to play) as an example. Dropping the -en leaves the stem spiel-. To this stem add the regular present-tense endings: |
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Present Tense of Modal Auxiliary Verbs and wissen
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Present Tense of Other Irregular Verbs
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1
Other verbs with a vowel change from e
to i are sprechen, essen, vergessen, and werfen.
2 Other verbs with a vowel change from e top ie and sehen, geschehen, and stehlen.3 Other verbs with a vowel change from a to ä are fahren, gefallen, fangen, schlafen, lassen, wachsen, and waschen.4 Other verbs with stems ending in d or t are leiden, reiten, reden, arbeiten, antworten, finden, etc.5 Other verbs with stems ending in an s-sound are lesen, passen, küssen, lassen, sich setzen, and schließen.6 Other verbs with an infinitive ending of n (instead of en) are ändern and sammeln (ich sammle, otherwise like tun).
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Conversational Past The conversational past, a compount tense, consists of present-tense forms of haben or sein and the past participle. Forms of sein are used with intransitive verbs of change of place or condition and also with sein, bleiben, and geschehen. With most verbs, the helping verb in the conversational past is haben. Examples:
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Narrative Past There are several verbs that are used more often in the narrative past than in the conversational past--even in conversation. Among the most notable of these words are sein, haben, and the modals. Here are their narrative-past forms:
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Future Tense The future tense is the easiest of all German tenses. It consists of present-tense forms of werden plus the infinitive (no exceptions). Examples:
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Imperatives
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For informal singular commands, one drops the -st from the du-form of the present tense. A final e is optional with most verbs; in practice, it is usually omitted. It must, however, be used with most verbs whose stems end in d or t (e.g., Arbeite! Rede!). Verbs with a present-tense vowel change from e to i (e.g., geben) or from e to ie (e.g., lesen) use the changed vowel in the familiar singular command form. A final e is not used with these forms. Examples: Gib mir das! Lies die Zeitung! Verbs with a vowel change from a to ä or from au to äu do not use the changed vowel in the imperative. Examples: Trag(e) die Blumen ins Wohnzimmer! Lauf(e) doch! The verb sein has two irregular imperative forms: (formal) Seien Sie...! and (familiar sing.) Sei...! The familiar plural form is regular: Seid...! | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
~ Nouns, Adjectives, Pronouns~ |
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Definite Articles, Attributive Adjectives, Nouns
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- Most
masculine and neuter nouns of more than one syllable add s
instead of es in the genitive singular, e.g.,
des Bruders.
- Note the optional final e in the dative singular of monosyllabic masculine and neuter nouns. - Gender is not a consideration in plural declensions. - All plural nouns, with the exception of those ending in s, end in n in the dative. |
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Indifinite Articles and Ein-Words
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Kein
and the possessive adjectives are called ein-words. In the
singular they take exactly the same endings as ein; unlike ein,
they can be used in the plural. Examples:
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Euer loses its second e when a letter or letter is/ are
appended.
- The endings of attributive adjectives following ein and ein-words will be learned in Book 3, Chapter 1.
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Der-Words Dieser and jeder are called der-words. There are two reasons for this: they are declined approximately according to the pattern of der, die, das (etc.), and the endings of the attributive adjectives following dieser and jeder are the same as the endings of the attributive adjectives following the definite article. Here are the forms of dieser:
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Personal Pronouns, Possessive Adjectives
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Reflexive Pronouns
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~Prepositions~ |
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Prepositions with Accusative Objects durch (through) für (for) gegen (against) ohne (without) um (around)
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Prepositions with Dative Objects aus (out of) außer (besides, except) bei (with, at the house of) mit (with) nach (to, after) seit (since, for [time]) von (from, of, by) zu (to, at)
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Prepositions with Genitive Objects (an)statt (instead of) trotz (despite, in spite of) während (during) wegen (because of, on account of)
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Two-way Prepositions These nine prepositions sometimes take accusative objects, sometimes dative objects: an (on [vertical plane]) auf (on [horizontal plane]) in (in, into) vor (before, in front of) hinter (behind, in back of) über (over, above, about) unter (under, below) neben (next to) zwischen (between) The two-way prepositions take accusative objects when the prepositional phrase expresses wohin; when wo is expressed, dative objects are used. Examples: (wohin) Der Junge läuft in die Schule. (wo) Der Junge sitzt in der Schule. Some two-way prepositional phrases express neither wo nor wohin. Some such phrases have accusative objects, others dative objects. Memorize the following prepositional expressions involving accusative objects: denken an (think about): Ich denke an sie. sprechen über (talk about) Sprechen Sie über mich? warten auf (wait for): Wir warten auf unsere Freunde.
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Prepositional Contractions
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Prepositional contractions are usually optional. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Return to Essential German, Book 2 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Return to Essentials of German, Book 3 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Return to Essentials of German, Book 4 |