Basics 2 · 3268cf9a487e81bbc2c252106133387a
Verbs
Let’s review the verb to be!
| sein to be |
|
|---|---|
| ich I |
bin am |
| du you |
bist are |
| er / sie / es he / she / it |
ist is |
| wir we |
sind are |
| ihr you all |
seid are |
| sie they |
sind are |
Notice that sie, the word for she and they, is the same. Plus, German has two words for you! Use du for talking to one person, and ihr for talking with two or more!
Plurals
In English, we usually add ‑s to the end of a word to make it plural (for example, cat and cats). German has a couple different patterns for plural nouns. Here are a couple:
| add ‑er | Mann, Männer man, men Kind, Kinder child, children |
|---|---|
| add ‑en | Frau, Frauen woman, women Junge, Jungen boy, boys |
| no change | Mädchen, Mädchen girl, girls |
There are a couple things to take note of here. First, Mann changes to Männer. And if the word already ends with e, like Junge, you just need to add ‑n!
For all plural nouns, the is just die, regardless of gender!
Die Kinder und die Männer.The children and the men.
German Sounds
Sometimes, you’ll see two dots over a vowel, also known as an umlaut. The umlaut changes the sound of the vowel a bit, so let’s practice the pronunciation of a and ä!
a
Wasser, Mann, danke
(as in “father”)
ä
Mädchen, Männer, Bär
(as in “bed”)
By the way, if you’re not sure how to type those umlaut characters, adding e after the vowel is also acceptable! For example, Maedchen or Maenner.