Chapter 2

The Nitty-Gritty: Basic German Grammar

In This Chapter

Identifying parts of speech

Combining words to create sentences

Talking in terms of the past, present, and future

Making a case for cases

When you think about grammar, imagine a big dresser with lots of drawers. Instead of being filled with all kinds of clothing, these drawers contain different types of words, called parts of speech: nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and so on. Each part of speech is in a separate drawer.

Now imagine it’s early morning and you’re about to utter your first German sentence of the day. To begin, you reach into the noun drawer and pull out the word Socken (zok-en) (socks). Next, to describe your socks, you reach into the adjective drawer and pull out two words, neu (noy) (new) and schwarz (shvârts) (black). To indicate what you do with your new black socks, you fish through the verb drawer and pull out the verb anziehen (ân-tsee-en) (to put on). And because you’re running late, you dive straight into the adverb drawer and grab the word schnell (shnêl) (quickly). Now, to construct a whole sentence, you need another item, this one from the pronoun drawer: ich (iH) (I). Before you know it, you’ve pulled a complete sentence out of the dresser: Ich ziehe schnell meine neuen schwarzen Socken an (iH tsee-he shnêl mayn-e noy-en shvârts-en zok-en ân) (I quickly put my new black socks on).

To construct a correct sentence, you need to know how to string all these words together, and that’s what grammar is all about. This chapter makes using grammar as easy as getting dressed in the morning. With a few basic rules in your back pocket, you’ll be using grammar with confidence in no time. So arrange your thoughts, grab the words you need, and before you know it, you’ll be out the door and speaking — auf Deutsch (ouf doych) (in German).

Getting a Handle on Parts of Speech

To construct a simple sentence, you need a certain number of building blocks, the parts of speech. The most essential of these are nouns, articles, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. The following sections give you the lowdown on each of these.

Nouns

A rose is a rose is a rose, right? Well, a rose is also a noun, and nouns aren’t exactly the same in German and English. Although nouns in both languages name things (people, places, objects, concepts, and so on), the difference is that all German nouns are capitalized and have one of three genders: masculine, feminine, or neuter. The following sections go into more detail on gender and how to make singular German nouns plural.

Understanding a noun’s gender

As mentioned previously, German nouns have gender. That is, they are one of the following: masculine, feminine, or neuter. Unfortunately, the meaning of a noun isn’t usually much help in predicting its grammatical gender. You need to keep in mind that in German, grammatical gender is an element of German grammar, and it’s not related to the meaning of the noun. Instead, it’s a kind of marker that identifies how the noun fits into a sentence. Sorry, no easy way out. You simply have to memorize the gender that belongs with each noun. However, a few guidelines can get you started:

Nouns for male persons, cars, nationalities, occupations, seasons, days, and months are usually masculine.

Nouns for most female persons, many flowers, and trees are feminine.

Nouns beginning with Ge- are usually neuter.

Nouns ending in -ist, -ich, -ismus, and -ner are usually masculine.

Nouns ending in -heit, -keit, -ik, -schaft, -ei, -tät, and -ung are usually feminine.

Nouns ending in -chen, -lein, -ium, -um, and -tum are usually neuter.

Knowing a noun’s gender becomes even more important when the noun is plopped into a sentence. How’s that? Well, depending on the role the noun plays in the sentence, the three definite articles der (dêr), die (dee), and das (dâs), all of which translate to the English the, can go through all kinds of spelling gyrations, and sometimes even the noun’s spelling is altered. Same with the indefinite articles ein (ayn), eine (ayn-e), and ein (ayn), which correspond to the English a and an. In fact, because you can’t really talk about German nouns without talking about the articles that accompany them, we devote a whole section to the topic. The key to all this morphing is what’s known as case. Read the section “Putting the Language in the Proper Case” later in this chapter to shed more light on how to put German nouns and articles into sentences.

Making singular nouns plural

Throughout this book, you encounter nouns in their singular and/or plural forms. You may notice that in German, there are several ways to change a singular noun to its plural form.

Two groups of words are easy to deal with:

The group of nouns that are the same in both the singular and plural forms, like the English noun “sheep.” Many of the nouns in this group are masculine- and neuter-gender words ending in -er, like das Fenster/die Fenster (dâs fens-ter/dee fens-ter) (window/windows), and der Amerikaner/die Amerikaner (dêr â-mey-ree-kah-ner/dee â-mey-ree-kah-ner) (American/Americans).

The group of nouns that are mostly of foreign origin: The plural form of these nouns has an -s ending, for example das Radio/die Radios (dâs rah-dee-oh/dee rah-dee-ohs) (radio/radios) and das Café/die Cafés (dâs café [as in English] /dee cafes) (café/cafés).

Other plural form patterns include nouns that add -e, -er, or –en; nouns that add an umlaut (represented by two dots over a vowel, as in ä, ö, and ü); or a combination of both. Following are three examples: der Vater/die Väter (dêr fah-ter/dee fai-ter) (father/fathers), die Lampe/die Lampen (dee lâm-pe/dee lâm-pen) (lamp/lamps), and das Buch/die Bücher (das booH/dee bueH-er) (book/books). Sound complicated? You’re right, so do try to make a point of remembering the plural form of a noun (and its gender!) when you first incorporate it into your active vocabulary.

Articles

Nouns often appear in the company of a sidekick: a definite article (der, die, and das, which correspond to the English the) or an indefinite article (ein, eine, and ein, which correspond to a or an). Read on for more.

The definite articles (“der,” “die,” and “das” )

Here’s where German gets sticky. While the definite article the has only one form in English, in German, it has three forms: der (dêr) (masculine), die (dee) (feminine), and das (dâs) (neuter). Which form you use depends on the gender of the German noun. Der is the definite article used with masculine nouns, die is used with feminine nouns, and das is used with neuter nouns.

When meeting a new noun, find out whether its definite article is der, die, or das — in other words, determine the gender of the noun. For example, memorize der Garten (dêr gâr-ten) (the garden) rather than just Garten (gâr-ten) (garden), die Tür (dee tuer) (the door) rather than Tür (tuer) (door), and das Haus (dâs house [as in English]) (the house) rather than Haus (house) (house).

For plural nouns, things are comparatively easy. The definite article for all plural nouns, regardless of gender, is die (dee). And, as in English, the indefinite article a just vanishes in the plural: a garden becomes gardens.(The next section explains indefinite articles in more detail.)

The indefinite articles (“ein,” “eine,” and “ein”)

In English, you use the indefinite article a or an when you want to specify one of a particular thing. Because you’re dealing with three different genders in German, you also have to use three different indefinite articles. Luckily, the indefinite article for masculine and neuter nouns is the same:

For masculine nouns: You use ein (ayn), for example, ein Name (ayn nah-me) (a name), ein Mann (ayn mân) (a man), and ein Berg (ayn bêrg) (a mountain).

For neuter nouns: You use ein (ayn), for example, ein Problem (ayn pro-bleym) (a problem), ein Museum (ayn moo-zey-oom) (a museum), ein Bier (ayn beer) (a beer).

For feminine nouns: You add an e to ein, making eine (ayn-e), for example, eine Nacht (ayn-e nâHt) (a night), eine Adresse (ayn-e ah-drês-e) (an address), and eine Cousine (ayn-e kooh-zeen-e) (a female cousin).

Not too difficult, right? But things can get a little more complicated. You know that the gender of a noun determines the articles that are used with it. But the endings of the articles also change depending on whether the noun they’re attached to is in the nominative, genitive, dative, or accusative case. The endings specified in the preceding list are those of the nominative case. For more information about case and how it affects both definite and indefinite articles, head to the later section “Why all these cases matter.”

Pronouns

Pronouns are the handy group of words that can punt for nouns so you don’t sound redundant. In German, pronouns change form depending on their role in a sentence. For example, ich (iH) (I) can change into mich (miH) (me) or mir (mir) (me). For more on pronouns and case, see “Putting the Language in the Proper Case” later in this chapter.

Adjectives

Adjectives describe nouns. In German, adjectives have different endings depending on the gender, case (more about that later in this chapter), and number (singular or plural) of the noun they accompany. Adjective endings also depend on whether the adjective is accompanied by a definite article, an indefinite article, or no article at all.

The following list shows the endings for adjectives accompanied by a definite article in the nominative case (for more on case, see “Putting the Language in the Proper Case” later in this chapter). This list includes the adjectives schön (shern) (beautiful), weiß (vays) (white), groß (grohs) (large), and klein (klayn) (small). The adjective endings appear in italics:

der schöne Garten (dêr sher-ne gâr-ten) (the beautiful garden)

die weiße Tür (dee vays-e tuer) (the white door)

das kleine Haus (dâs klayn-e hous) (the small house)

die großen Häuser (dee grohs-en hoy-zer) (the large houses)

Following are the nominative case endings for adjectives used alone (that is, without an accompanying article) or adjectives accompanied by an indefinite article:

(ein) schöner Garten ([ayn] sher-ner gâr-ten) ([a] beautiful garden)

(eine) weiße Tür ([ayn -e] vays-e tuer) ([a] white door)

(ein) kleines Haus ([ayn] klayn-es hous) ([a] small house)

große Häuser (grohs-e hoy-zer) (large houses)

All the adjectives (and their corresponding endings) in the preceding examples are in the subject case (that is, the nominative case). The endings for the other cases follow a little later in this chapter.

Verbs

Verbs express actions or states of being. The person doing the action is the verb’s subject, and the verb always adjusts its ending to the subject. For example, you say I open the door and the cat opens the door. In the present tense in English, most verbs have two different forms, or spellings, for example, open and opens. Most German verbs, on the other hand, have four different forms. (For further information on tenses, check out the section later in this chapter, “The Tenses: Past, Present, and Future.”)

The verb form in its basic, static state is called the infinitive. It’s what you see in the mini-dictionary at the back of this book, or in any dictionary for that matter. In English, the infinitive verb form looks like the following examples: to play, to think, or to ride, and you can put it into a sentence like this: I know how to ride a camel. German infinitives, however, usually have the ending -en, as in lachen (lâH-en) (to laugh), stuck onto what’s called the stem. For example, the stem of lachen is lach-. A small number of verbs have the infinitive ending -n.

The stems of most verbs don’t change, and the endings of such verbs are always the same. The following table shows the endings of the verb sagen (zah-gen) (to say). You tack the appropriate ending onto the stem sag-, depending on how you’re expressing the verb.

Conjugation	Pronunciation
ich sag-e	iH zah-ge
du sag-st	dooh zâgst
Sie sag-en	zee zah-gen
er, sie, es sag-t	êr, zee, ês zâgt
wir sag-en	veer zah-gen
ihr sag-t	eer zâgt
Sie sag-en	zee zah-gen
sie sag-en	zee zah-gen

Seems easy, doesn’t it? But — as usual — some exceptions to the rule do exist. When the stem of the verb ends in -m, -n, -d, or -t, you need to insert an -e before the ending in the du, er/sie/es, and ihr constructions, as shown in the following examples:

du atm-e-st (ât-mêst) (you [singular, informal ] breathe)

er arbeit-e-t (âr-bay-têt) (he works)

ihr bad-e-t (ba-dêt) (you [plural, informal ] bathe)

Why the added e? Try to pronounce “atmst,” and you’ll know.

Adverbs

Adverbs accompany verbs or adjectives and their purpose is to describe them. In English, most adverbs end with -ly (as in: I quickly put my new black socks on.) In German, adverbs are generally spelled the same as their adjective counterparts in their barebones form, without special endings.

Take, for example, vorsichtig (fohr-ziH-tiH) (careful/carefully), which has the same spelling for both its adjective and its adverb meaning. When you use vorsichtig in a sentence as an adverb, it keeps the same spelling, for example, Fahren Sie vorsichtig! (fahr-en zee fohr-ziH-tiH!) (Drive carefully!) However, when you use vorsichtig in a sentence as an adjective, it changes its form (spelling) the way all German adjectives do; see the previous section about adjectives. The following sentence shows how vorsichtig, when used as an adjective, changes its spelling according to the noun it describes:

Sie ist eine vorsichtige Fahrerin (zee ist ayn-e fohr-ziH-tig-e fahr-er-in) (She’s a careful driver).

Constructing Simple Sentences

Nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs aren’t just thrown together helter-skelter; instead, to create a logical sentence, you arrange words in a specific order. The correct order is determined by certain rules, which the next sections explain.

Arranging words in the right order

Standard word order in German is much like English word order. The subject comes first, then the verb, followed by the rest of the sentence. Look at the following example sentence.

Subject	Verb	Object
Meine Freundin	hat	einen Hund.
mayn-e froyn-din	hât	ayn-en hoont.
My girlfriend	has	a dog.

Putting the verb in second place

One of the most important things to remember is the place of the verb in a German sentence. In freestanding clauses (known as independent clauses), like the one in the preceding section, a one-word verb is always in second place, no matter what. The term “second place,” however, doesn’t necessarily mean the second word in the sentence. Rather, it refers to the second “placeholder,” which may be comprised of more than one word. For example, meine Freundin, the subject of the earlier sentence, consists of two words but it’s the first placeholder. In the following examples, the verb is fahren (fahr-en) (to drive), and it follows the second place rule.

Meine Freundin fährt nach Dänemark. (mayn-e froyn-din fairt nâH dê-ne-mârk.) (My girlfriend is driving to Denmark.)

How about adding some more information?

Meine Freundin fährt morgen nach Dänemark. (mayn-e froyn-din fairt mor-gen nâH dê-ne-mârk.) (My girlfriend is driving to Denmark tomorrow.)

Standard practice in German sentences is to place the reference to time, morgen (mor-gen) (tomorrow), before the reference to place, nach Dänemark (nâH dê-ne-mark) (to Denmark), as you can see in the previous sentence. What happens if you start the sentence with morgen?

Morgen fährt meine Freundin nach Dänemark. (mor-gen fairt mayn-e froyn-din nâH dê-ne-mârk.) (Tomorrow my girlfriend is driving to Denmark.)

Morgen is in first place, and because the verb has to be in second place, the subject follows the verb. Technically, this arrangement is called inversion of the verb. All it means is that the verb and the subject switch places. Inversion of the verb occurs whenever anything other than the subject occupies first place in a sentence.

Having said that, what about the statement Meine Freundin hat einen Hund (from the preceding section)? Can you give that one a twirl and change the word order? Absolutely, as long as the verb stays in second place, like this: Einen Hund hat meine Freundin. But why would you want to rearrange word order? Generally, you do so to shift emphasis in the meaning. For example, you may hear something along the lines of the following conversation:

Hat deine Schwester einen Hund? (hât dayn-e shvês-ter ayn-en hoont?) (Does your sister have a dog?)

Nein, sie hat eine Katze. Einen Hund hat meine Freundin Heike. (nayn, zee hât ayn-e kâts-e. ayn-en hoont hât mayn-e froyn-din hay-ke.) (No, she has a cat. It’s my girlfriend Heike who has a dog.)

Don’t German speakers get all confused playing around with word order like that? That’s where the (in)famous German case system comes into play. Adjectives and articles that appear alongside nouns and, in some instances, the nouns themselves, assume different endings depending on their function in a sentence. So no matter where a noun appears in a German sentence, you can figure out its role by checking the ending of the article, the noun itself, and/or the adjective. See “Putting the Language in the Right Case” later in this chapter for the details.

Pushing the verb to the end

The examples used so far in this section have all been independent, stand-alone sentences, but sometimes several thoughts combine to form a more complex structure:

Wir gehen nicht einkaufen, weil wir kein Geld haben. (veer gey-en niHt ayn-kouf-en, vayl veer kayn gêlt hah-ben.) (We’re not going shopping because we have no money.)

The verb gehen (gey-en) (go) is in second place as you would expect, but the verb in the second part of the sentence beginning with weil (vayl)) (because), gets kicked to the end. This arrangement of the verb happens in dependent clauses.

Dependent clauses typically start with subordinating conjunctions (words that link sentences) like dass (dâs) (that), weil (vayl) (because), damit (dâ-mit) (so that), obwohl (op-vohl) (although), bevor (be-fohr) (before), and wenn (vên) (when), and they always end with the verb.

Forming questions

The German word order for asking yes or no questions is straightforward. You begin with a verb, and the subject follows.

Tanzen Sie gern? (tan-zen zee gêrn?) (Do you like to dance?)

Spricht er Spanisch? (shpriHt êr shpân-ish?) (Does he speak Spanish?)

Note that you don’t have the verb do in German when forming questions.

Another way to elicit information is to form a question using a question word like wer (vêr) (who), was (vâs) (what), wo (voh) (where), wann (vân) (when), wie (vee) (how), or warum (vah-roohm) (why). You can also form a question with words and phrases like was für ein/e/en. . . ? (vâs fuer ayn/e/en. . . ?) (what kind of. . . ?) or welche/r/s. . . ? (vêlH-e/r/s. . . ?) (which. . . ?). When forming questions with these words, the verb goes in its usual place — second:

Was für ein Fahrrad kauft Helmut? (vâs fuer ayn fahr-râd kouft hêl-moot?) (What kind of bicycle is Helmut buying?)

Wer kauft ein Rennrad? (vêr kouft ayn rên-râd?) (Who’s buying a racing bicycle?)

Wo kauft er das Rad? (voh kouft êr dâs râd) (Where’s he buying the bike?)

Warum kauft er ein Rennrad? (vah-roohm kouft êr ayn rên-râd?) (Why’s he buying a racing bicycle?)

The Tenses: Past, Present, and Future

In grammar, the word “tense” is what the layperson calls “time.” You pick the appropriate tense to describe when the action you’re talking about takes place. The ways to look at the concept of time differ slightly from one culture and language to the next, so the way tenses are used sometimes differs, too.

Looking at the present

The present tense is an incredibly useful tense in German. You can go a long way using just this one tense. The German present tense corresponds to three forms in English. For example, ich denke (iH dên-ke) can be used as the equivalent of I think, I do think, or I am thinking in English. And it gets even better: Depending on the context, the German present tense can correspond to the past or future tense in English.

The present tense can be used to describe what’s happening now:

Was machst du gerade? (vâs mâHst dooh ge-rah-de?) (What are you doing right now?)

Ich lese die Zeitung. (iH ley-ze dee tsay-toong.) (I’m reading the newspaper.)

Additionally, the present tense can describe what sometimes, usually, always, or never happens:

Freitags gehe ich oft ins Kino. (fray-tahks gey-e iH oft ins kee-noh.) (I often go to the movies on Fridays.)

The German present tense can also describe what’s going to happen:

Wir fliegen im Dezember nach Portugal. (veer fleeg-en im dey-tsêm-ber nâH por-tooh-gâl.) (We’re flying to Portugal in December.)

Nächste Woche fahre ich nach Bremen. (naiH-ste voH-e fahr-e iH nâH brey-men.) (Next week I’m going to drive to Bremen.)

Using the present tense is a very common way of talking about future events in German, particularly if the sentence includes a time expression that anchors the action clearly in the future — for example, im Dezember (im dey-tsêm-ber) (in December) or nächste Woche (naiH-ste voH-e) (next week).

And finally, Germans use the present tense to describe what’s been happening up to now:

Ich lebe seit zehn Jahren in der selben Wohnung. (iH ley-be zayt tseyn yahr-en in dêr zêl-ben vohn-oong.) (I’ve been living in the same apartment for ten years.)

Wie lange lernst du schon Deutsch? (vee lâng-e lêrnst dooh shohn doych?) (How long have you been learning German?)

Note that English uses the present perfect tense to express the same thing.

Talking about the past: The perfect tense

The perfect tense, for example, wir haben gegessen (veer hah-ben ge-gês-en) (we have eaten) or Jan hat gearbeitet (yahn hât ge-ahr-bay-tet) (Jan has worked) is the main tense used to describe past events in spoken German. It’s very versatile: You can use it to talk about most actions and situations in the past. Contrast this with the use of the English perfect tense (I have gone, I have eaten, and so on), which you can use only in specific contexts. For example, Ich habe Anna letzte Woche gesehen (iH hah-be ân-â lêts-te voH-e ge-zey-en) (I have seen Anna last week) is grammatically correct in German, even though it doesn’t quite work in English.

In the preceding sentence, the verb has two parts, habe and gesehen. These two parts are described in grammatical terms as the conjugated verb (habe in this example) and the past participle (here, gesehen). German word order for using verbs that have two or more parts follows specific rules. When forming a sentence with multiple verb parts, the conjugated verb takes second position in the sentence, and the other part(s) of the verb — in this instance, it’s the past participle — goes all the way to the end of the sentence. This rule holds true for all verbs that have two or more parts.

Most verbs form the perfect tense by combining the conjugated form of the verb haben (hah-ben) (have) and the past participle form of the verb. The following examples follow the German word order rule, meaning that the conjugated form of the verb haben is in second position in the sentence, and the past participle of the verb that is being expressed is kicked to the end of the sentence:

Luka hat mir geholfen. (looh-kâ hât meer ge-holf-en.) (Luka [has] helped me.)

Gestern haben wir ein neues Auto gekauft. (gês-tern hah-ben veer ayn noy-ês ou-toh ge-kouft.) (Yesterday we bought a new car.)

Hast du die Zeitung schon gelesen? (hâst dooh dee tsay-toong shohn ge-ley-zen?) (Have you read the newspaper yet?)

Ich habe den Film vor einer Woche gesehen. (iH hah-be deyn film fohr ayn-er woH-e ge-zey-en.) (I saw the film a week ago.)

Certain verbs require sein (zayn) (to be) instead of haben (hah-ben) (to have) to form the perfect tense. These verbs often describe some form of movement or a state. Here are a few examples:

Gestern bin ich ins Kino gegangen. (gês-tern bin iH ins kee-noh ge-gâng-en.) (I went to the movies yesterday.)

Ich bin in Hamburg gewesen. (iH bin in hâm-boorg ge-vey-zen.) (I’ve been to Hamburg./I was in Hamburg.)

Bist du mit dem Auto gekommen? (bist dooh mit deym ou-toh ge-kom-en?) (Did you come by car?)

Sie ist nicht mit dem Zug gefahren. (zee ist niHt mit deym tsoohk ge-fahr-en.) (She didn’t take the train.)

You can find the verb forms for haben and sein in Appendix B.

German verbs fall into two categories: weak and strong verbs. Regular verbs, known as weak verbs, make up the largest group of German verbs.

Forming the past participle of a weak verb

Here’s the formula for forming the past participle of a weak (regular) verb:

ge + verb stem (the infinitive minus -en) + (e)t = past participle

For example, for the verb fragen (frah-gen) (to ask), the formula looks like this:

ge + frag + t = gefragt

Some exceptions to this formula do exist. When the stem of the verb ends in -m, -n, -d, or -t, you need to insert an -e after the stem and before adding the -t, for example with the verbs arbeiten (âr-bay-ten) (to work) and atmen (ât-men) (to breathe) like this:

ge + arbeit + e + t = gearbeitet

ge + atm + e + t = geatmet

Forming the past participle of a strong verb

Here’s the formula for constructing the past participle of a strong (irregular) verb:

ge + verb stem (the infinitive minus -en) + en = past participle

For the verb kommen (kom-en) (to come), the past participle is

ge + komm + en = gekommen

See Chapter 10 for more information on the perfect tense.

Writing about the past: Using the simple past tense of verbs

The simple past verb tense is used all the time in printed German, such as newspapers or books, but it’s much less common in spoken German. For this reason, you don’t come across it much in this book. One exception is the simple past tense of sein (zayn) (to be), which is often preferable to the perfect tense in both speech and writing. The following table shows you the various forms of the simple past tense of the verb sein,

Conjugation	Pronunciation
ich war	iH vahr
du warst	dooh vahrst
Sie waren	zee vahr-en
er, sie, es war	êr, zee, ês vahr
wir waren	veer vahr-en
ihr wart	eer vahrt
Sie waren	zee vahr-en
sie waren	zee vahr-en

The following example sentences use the simple past tense of the verb sein:

Ich war heute Nachmittag nicht zu Hause. (iH vahr hoy-te nâH-mi-tâhk niHt tsooh hou-ze.) (I wasn’t home this afternoon.)

Gestern waren wir sehr müde. (gês-tern vahr-en veer zeyr mue-de.) (We were very tired yesterday.)

Talking about the future

The future tense isn’t used as frequently in German as it is in English. In many situations, you can use the present tense instead (refer to “Looking at the present” earlier in this chapter). When talking about events that will take place in the future, you can, of course, also use the future tense. The way to form the future tense in German is pretty similar to English. You take the verb werden (veyr-den) (will/to become) and add an infinitive.

The following table shows you the forms of the verb werden in the present tense.

Conjugation	Pronunciation
ich werde	iH veyr-de
du wirst	dooh virst
Sie werden	zee veyr-den
er, sie, es wird	êr, zee, ês virt
wir werden	veer veyr-den
ihr werdet	eer veyr-det
Sie werden	zee veyr-den
sie werden	zee veyr-den

To incorporate the future tense of verbs into sentences, you follow the standard German word order for using verbs that have two parts: The conjugated verb, in this case it’s werden, takes second position in the sentence. The other verb part, which, for the future tense, is the infinitive of the verb, goes all the way to the end of the sentence, as the following examples show:

Ich werde viel Geld verdienen. (iH veyr-de feel gêlt fêr-deen-en.) (I’m going to/I’ll earn a lot of money.)

Wir werden morgen skifahren. (veer veyr-den mor-gen shee-fahr-en.) (We’ll go/We’re going skiing tomorrow.)

Es wird regnen. (ês virt reyg-nen.) (It’s going to rain.)

Putting the Language in the Proper Case

All languages have ways of showing what role each noun plays in a particular sentence, for example, who (or what) is doing what to whom. In English, you show a noun’s role mainly by its position in a sentence. German speakers, on the other hand, indicate the function of a noun in a sentence mainly by adding endings to any articles or adjectives accompanying that noun (and sometimes to the noun itself).

A quick trip through the different cases

In a sentence, nouns appear in one of four cases, depending on their role: nominative for the subject, accusative for the direct object, dative for the indirect object, and genitive to show possession.

Nominative case: The subject of a sentence is always in the nominative case. As a rule, the subject is the person or thing performing the action of the verb. For example, in the sentence Der Junge stiehlt eine Wurst (dêr yoong-e shteelt ayn-e voorst) (The boy steals a sausage), the boy is the subject of the sentence: He’s the one stealing a sausage.

Accusative case: The direct object of the sentence is always in the accusative case. The direct object is the person or thing directly affected by the action of the verb. So in the sentence Der Junge stiehlt eine Wurst (the example introduced in the preceding bullet), sausage is the direct object. It’s the thing that’s being stolen.

Dative case: The indirect object of the sentence is always in the dative case. Think of the indirect object as the person or thing that receives the direct object. Look at the sentence Der Junge gibt dem Hund die Wurst (dêr yoong-e gipt deym hoont dee voorst) (The boy gives the sausage to the dog). Here, the dog is the indirect object because the boy gives the sausage to Fido. (The sausage is the direct object, the thing that’s being given.)

If a sentence has two objects, one of them is probably an indirect object. If in doubt, try translating the sentence into English: If you can put “to” before one of the nouns, that’s the indirect object in the German sentence.

Genitive case: The genitive case is used to indicate possession. The person or thing that possesses is in the genitive case. For example, in the phrase der Hund des Jungen (dêr hoont dês yoong-en) (the boy’s dog), the boy possesses the dog, so the boy is in the genitive case.

In this book, you mainly encounter the nominative, accusative, and dative cases. The genitive case is used less frequently; we mention it here only for the sake of completeness.

Why all these cases matter

You may be wondering why we’re making such a big deal about this case business. Understanding the various cases is a complex but necessary step when learning German. The different cases make pronouns change form. And the cases also make the endings of articles and adjectives change. Read on for the nitty-gritty.

How pronouns change

You use pronouns instead of nouns as a way to avoid clumsy repetition. Pronouns change form depending on how they’re used in a sentence. Table 2-1 shows you the pronouns in the nominative, dative, and accusative cases. Notice how the pronouns change according to case.

Following are examples of the second person singular pronoun du appearing in the nominative, dative, and accusative cases depending on its function in a sentence:

Du bist sehr schön. (dooh bist zeyr shern.) (You’re very beautiful.) du = nominative.

Ich gebe dir einen Ring. (iH gey-be deer ayn-en ring.) (I’m giving you a ring.) dir = dative.

Ich habe dich lieb. (iH hah-be diH leep.) (I’m very fond of you). dich = accusative

How definite articles change

The definite articles (refer to the earlier section “The definite article”) also morph depending on which case they’re used in, as shown in Table 2-2.

The following examples show the masculine definite article der with its appropriate endings in the four different cases:

Der Fuchs läuft über die Straße. (dêr foox loyft ue-ber dee shtrah-se.) (The fox is running across the road.) der = nominative.

Sie lebt in der Wohnung des Freundes. (zee lêpt in dêr vohn-oong dês froyn-des.) (She lives in the friend’s apartment.) des = genitive.

Ich leihe dem Freund mein Auto. (iH lay-he deym froynt mayn ou-toh.) (I’m lending my car to the friend.) dem = dative.

Kaufst du den Computer? (koufst dooh deyn computer [as in English]?) (Are you buying the computer?) den = accusative.

How indefinite articles change

The German indefinite article ein (ayn) (a) can assume different endings. Which ending ein takes depends on whether it accompanies the subject of a sentence (nominative), a possessive object (genitive), the direct object (accusative), or the indirect object (dative). Table 2-3 shows you the indefinite article ein being put through the paces of the various cases.

The following examples show the indefinite article ein with its appropriate masculine endings in the four different cases:

Ein Fuchs läuft über die Straße. (ayn foox loyft ue-ber dee shtrah-se.) (A fox is running across the road.) ein = nominative.

Sie lebt in der Wohnung eines Freundes. (zee lêpt in dêr vohn-oong ayn-es froyn-des.) (She lives in a friend’s apartment.) eines = genitive.

Ich leihe einem Freund mein Auto. (iH lay-he ayn-em froynt mayn ou-toh.) (I’m lending my car to a friend.) einem = dative.

Kaufst du einen Computer? (koufst dooh ayn-en computer [as in English]) (Are you buying a computer?) einen = accusative.

How possessives change

Possessive adjectives establish ownership. They mark the difference between what belongs to you (“your book”) what belongs to me (“my book”), and so on. Here’s a run-through of the forms for the different persons:

mein (mayn) (my)

dein (dayn) (your) (informal, singular address)

Ihr (eer) (your) (formal, singular address)

sein, ihr, sein (zayn, eer, zayn) (his, her, its)

unser (oon-zer) (our)

euer (oy-er) (your) (informal, plural address)

Ihr (eer) (your) (formal, plural address)

ihr (eer) (their)

Table 2-4 presents all the forms in the singular of a sample possessive, mein (mayn) (my). The other possessives take the same endings. These endings may look familiar; they’re the same as those for the indefinite article ein (ayn) (a, an), as well as for the adjective that negates a noun, kein (kayn) (no, not, not any).

How adjective endings change

As we mention earlier in this chapter, adjectives and articles that accompany nouns change their endings according to the role of the noun in the sentence. To illustrate the endings for both adjectives and articles with nouns they’re describing, Table 2-5 shows the endings in combination with an indefinite article, and Table 2-6 shows the definite article.

In Table 2-5 you see how the adjective endings change when an indefinite article precedes them. The so-called ein- words also follow the same pattern. Ein- words include kein (kayn) (no, not, not any) and the possessive adjectives, a list of which is in the previous section. This table includes the word kein for the plural forms because the indefinite article has no plural. For more information on using kein, see Chapter 5.