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LANGUAGE AND CULTURE

If you know these 10 things, you’re a German grammar master

Do you do all these things without thinking twice? Then you're either native or you have truly become a master of the German language.

Published: 4 July 2017 14:11 CEST
Updated: 12 October 2017 14:23 CEST
If you know these 10 things, you're a German grammar master
Photo: DPA

1. Word Genders 

If you're consistently getting the genders of words right, even when using different cases, then you're onto a winner. Here's an unusual one for you though – what is the gender of the word Gebäude (building)? 

Tempted to say feminine due to the 'e' on the end? Gebäude is actually neuter. 

2. Subordinating conjunctions

What is wrong with the phrase weil ich liebe meine Katze (because I love my cat)? The verb isn't at the end of phrase as it should be, since weil is a subordinating conjunction. 

Admittedly, this one isn't so important when speaking, as native speakers sometimes don't bother popping the verb to the end, but a true grammar fanatic would know of the rule and make sure they used it in their written German at least. 

3. Knowing what verbs to use with sein in the perfect tense

Does saying ich bin gefahren come instinctively to you now? Do you wince a little if you hear someone say ich habe gegangen?

Getting the hang of which verbs to use with sein and which to use with haben in the perfect tense separates beginners from advanced learners of German. 

4. Possessive pronouns

A Russian blue cat. Photo: DPA

This just requires some memorization, but messing up can give you away as a non-native speaker. 

If it's feminine or plural, go for deren, if it's masculine or neutral, go for dessen. For example: Die Frau, deren Katze auf dem Boden lag (the woman, whose cat lay on the floor).

5. Nach or Nachdem? Vor or Bevor? 

If you've fully understood the difference between nach and nachdem or vor and bevor, then you're on your way to sounding native. 

As as rule of thumb, the preposition by itself is followed by a noun,  eg nach dem Film, whereas nachdem is followed by a phrase with a verb, for example nachdem ich den Film gesehen habe. 

6. Als or wenn? 

This can prove a tricky judgement call when describing past events, but you should use als for an event that happened only once in the past, and wenn for events that happened more than once in the past. 

7. The Passive 

Photo: DPA 

The passive in different tenses can prove to be a real head-scratcher, especially when you add in the element of modal verbs. 

Is saying Ihm konnte nicht geholfen werden (he couldn't be helped) a piece of cake? Then hats off to you. 

8. Knowing what verbs match with what prepositions

This truly marks out a native speaker from a German-learner. There's not really a rule for knowing which preposition aligns with which verb, you just have to learn it. 

A few useful ones are fahren nach (to travel to), warten auf (to wait for) and sich freuen auf (to look forward to). 

9. Adjective endings

No matter how well you think you have learned them, when talking or writing at speed, adjective endings always seem to trip you up. 

However, once you stop just hap-hazardly attaching an -en to the end of every adjective and start instinctively applying them properly, you can consider yourself pretty darned adept at German. 

10. Capitalizing nouns 

A classic rookie error is failing to give all nouns a capital letter. Once you've grasped it and you can scribble away in German without having to give it too much thought, then you know your language skills are just that tiny, little bit better than when you started.

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GERMAN LANGUAGE

Everything that’s changed in the latest Duden German dictionary

The new Duden dictionary is thicker than ever with an additional 3,000 words in its 29th edition. The reference work, which is out on Tuesday, also includes spelling and grammar changes.

Published: 20 August 2024 12:36 CEST
Everything that's changed in the latest Duden German dictionary

In the four years since the last new edition of the ‘Duden’ German dictionary, the world has seen enormous changes, from the pandemic to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and even changed eating habits.

The dictionary reflects these developments with the inclusion of words such as Coronaleugner (Covid denier), Klimakleber (climate activists who glue themselves to things), Ukrainekrieg (war in Ukraine), Extremwetterereignis (extreme weather event), Deutschlandticket (Germany travel ticket), ChatGPT, and Fleischersatz (meat substitute).

“The Duden is a mirror of its time. These words say something about what has happened in the last three to four years,” editor-in-chief Kathrin Kunkel-Razum told news agency DPA. 

The biggest language changes of the past few years can be seen in the areas of crisis, war and cooking, Kunkel-Razum said.

The Duden also highlights language trends, like Quetschie, a word used to describe the squeezable packets of fruit purees that are sold as snacks for children. The term comes from the word quetschen (to squeeze).

Unsurprisingly, there are also quite a few new borrowed words or expressions from English. These include ‘upskirting,’ ‘catcalling’ and pampern (pampering).

The Duden is the most well-known reference work on German spelling and, as such, regularly deletes words that are no longer used very much.

Three hundred words have been removed from the current edition, Kunkel-Razum said.

READ ALSO: What are the best websites and apps to learn German?

These include words like frigidär (refrigerator), UMTS-Handy (UMTS mobile phone) or Rationalisator, a term used in the GDR to describe an employee with rationalisation tasks.

Kühlschrank (der) is the only word for a fridge now, while Handy (das, and without the UMTS) is the ‘Denglisch’ word for a mobile phone.

The dictionary has also ditched spelling variants for some words. For example, Tunfisch and Spagetti are no longer accepted ways of writing tuna and spaghetti. Only Thunfisch and Spaghetti are correct now.

“Deleting words is much more difficult than adding them,” the linguist said, explaining that it was much harder to prove that a word was rarely used than the other way around.

Deletions can also be reversed, she said. For example, the word Hackenporsche (a jokey description for a shopping trolley) was removed from the previous addition but has now been included again.

“We received complaints that the word was deleted,” said Kunkel-Razum.

The reference work – named after German philologist Konrad Duden – used to be binding until Germany’s 1996 spelling reform. The authority on spelling is now the Council for German Orthography, which publishes an ‘official set of rules’. 

READ ALSO: Denglisch: The English words that will make you sound German

Reference works like Duden then implement these rules which eventually become incorporated in everyday use.

Kunkel-Razum said the new Duden contained the Council’s latest spelling changes that were approved at the end of 2023.

These include the mandatory use of a comma before an extended infinitive.

An extended infinitive is the bit of a sentence that’s in direct relation to the ‘infinitive plus zu‘ construction. So, according to the new rules, this means that you should write: Gisela weiß mit Sicherheit, The Local gelesen zu haben. (Gisela knows for sure that she’s read The Local.)

Here, the extended infinitive is ‘The Local gelesen zu haben’ so the comma goes before that.

The comma used to be compulsory, then it became optional and now it’s compulsory again – don’t you love German?

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