CAPITALIZATION
All nouns (words with "the" or "a" in front of them) must be
capitalized in German.
ORDER of a SENTENCE
1st: Subject 2nd:
Verb 3rd: D.O./rest of the
sentence
Ich mache meine Hausaufgabe.
ORDER of a QUESTION
1st: Question word 2nd: Verb
3rd: Subject 4th:
D.O./rest of question
Was machst du nach der Schule?
TMP: Time Manner Place
This also determines the word order in sentences and
questions.
Ich fahre um halb elf (T) mit dem Bus (M) nach Berlin (P).
DIRECT OBJECTS:
A direct object can be found by asking who or what
received the action of the verb.
In German, when you have a direct object the "the" and "a" word may
change. That's where the "the" chart becomes helpful.
Nominative (subject)
Accusative (DO)
the
a
the
a
mas.
der ein
den einen
fem.
die eine
die eine
neu.
das ein
das ein
pl.
die keine
die keine
Examples:
I eat the apple. Ich esse den Apfel.
We are buying the tie. Wir kaufen die Krawatte.
Norby has the book. Norby hat das Buch.
They have no books. Sie haben keine
Buecher.
PLURAL RULES (this applies to most words,
not all)
**The "the" word for all plurals is "die". Change all "der/das" to "die"
when using plural!
der add -"e (This means to add an umlaut
to the first vowel in the word and an "e" at the end.)
das add -"er (This means to add an umlaut to the
first vowel in the word and "er" at the end.)
die add -n or -en
Ends in...
e
add -n
er
stays the same
a, o, i add -s
in
add -nen
ung add -en
lein/chen stays the same
MODAL VERBS (dürfen,
können, wollen, sollen, mögen, müssen)
All modal verbs are conjugated to agree with the subject. Any other
verb (infinitive) gets upset and goes as far away as possible and will be
brought to an abrupt HALT by a punctuation.
Example:
Regular sentence: Ich mache nach der Schule meine Hausaufgabe.
Modal Verb: Ich möchte nach der Schule meine Hausaufgabe
machen.
