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German phrases, by meaning
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Common questions about German
What does this German page cover?
Twenty-two functional categories of meaning with German examples in each: tense and aspect (Präsens, Perfekt for spoken past, Präteritum for narrative past, Plusquamperfekt, Futur), the four cases (Nominativ, Akkusativ, Dativ, Genitiv), modality (können, müssen, dürfen, sollen, wollen, mögen), negation (nicht versus kein), questions, comparison with als and wie, and 16 others. Every example carries a word-by-word gloss with case labels.
Why do articles change shape so much?
Because German articles encode three pieces of information at once: gender (M/F/N), number (SG/PL), and case (NOM/ACC/DAT/GEN). 'The' for a masculine singular noun is der in nominative, den in accusative, dem in dative, des in genitive. Adjectives between the article and noun then take their own endings depending on whether the article already showed the case. The page makes case labels explicit so the pattern becomes learnable.
What is V2 word order, and when does it break?
In a main clause, the finite verb sits in second position regardless of what comes first: Ich gehe heute / Heute gehe ich / Morgen werde ich gehen. Whatever fronts (subject, time word, object) takes slot one and the verb stays at slot two. In subordinate clauses introduced by weil, dass, wenn, the verb moves to the very end: ...weil ich heute gehe. Most German word-order surprises trace back to one of these two rules.
How do separable prefix verbs work?
Verbs like aufstehen (to get up), anrufen (to call), einkaufen (to shop) split apart in main clauses: Ich stehe um sieben Uhr auf. The prefix sails to the end. In subordinate clauses they stay together (...weil ich um sieben Uhr aufstehe). Inseparable prefix verbs (be-, ver-, ent-, er-, zer-) never split. Examples show the contrast directly.
Is this Standard German or a regional variety?
Standard German (Hochdeutsch), the variety used in news, schooling, and writing across Germany, Austria, and German-speaking Switzerland. Regional varieties (Bayerisch, Schwäbisch, Schweizerdeutsch, Plattdeutsch) differ substantially in pronunciation and some lexical and grammatical detail; the structures shown here are the broadly understood standard.
Sources for German
The grammatical descriptions on this page are informed by the following published reference and descriptive grammars. Grammatical facts themselves are not subject to copyright; the scholars who documented them deserve attribution.
- Duden (2016). Die Grammatik, 9th ed. Berlin: Dudenverlag.
- Eisenberg, Peter (2020). Grundriss der deutschen Grammatik (Band 1 & 2), 5th ed. Stuttgart: J.B. Metzler.
- Hammer, Alfred E. / Durrell, Martin (2017). Hammer's German Grammar and Usage, 6th ed. London: Routledge.
- Fox, Anthony (2005). The Structure of German, 2nd ed. Oxford University Press.
- Hall, T. Alan (2000). Phonologie: Eine Einführung. Berlin: de Gruyter.