For example:Įven for German verbs that have two parts (trennbare Verben), the second half of the verb still goes to the end. But in German, the first verb comes at the beginning, while the second goes at the end of the sentence. In English, a sentence with two verbs places both those verbs at the beginning.
The last major element I’ll mention that’s different between German and English is verb placement. I can also admit though, that even native English speakers make pronunciation mistakes on tricky words with silent letters! 7.
IMPERATIVE GERMAN GRAMMAR HOW TO
My advice for English learners in this case is to listen to native speakers as much as possible, because then you’ll know how to pronounce the word. This is only a sliver of the many examples that exist. In German, pronunciation is pretty cut and dry: you see the word and that’s how it sounds. Silent lettersĪs a former English teacher, I can confirm through many of my students that one of the most difficult parts of learning English is our obsession with silent letters and strange pronunciation. For me, I did have to learn how to move my mouth slightly differently to pronounce umlauts, but as with everything in the language learning process, the more you practice the easier it gets ! 6. There are similar pronunciation equivalents in English, but they’re not 100% accurate. German has a few additional letters in their alphabet known as umlauts : ä, ö, and ü.
Sometimes it can get a bit confusing as to which one is correct, so the method I use is to start with “Sie” and then change to “du” if the person uses it with me or directly says it’s ok to use. The basic rule of thumb is that you use the “Sie” form with anyone you don’t know, when someone is further up the hierarchy (such as your manager), and in generally formal settings such as speaking with a doctor, lawyer, or politician. Du is the equivalent of calling someone by their first name and Sie is the same as Mr or Mrs, but in addition you use it with the actual personal pronoun. If you’re learning German, you’ll soon learn that they’ve got a word for literally everything! While English only uses the term “you” to refer to a person, in German there is the option for “Sie” (formal) or “du” (informal). The nouns in these sentences are “horse” and “apple”, and you can see that in German they are capitalised, but in English they are lowercase. While the German list looks shorter, you actually need to capitalise more words, because it covers all nouns.
CapitalisationĬapitalisation rules have distinct differences in English and German, and it is extremely important to note when writing in either language. But as a native English speaker who has learned German, I feel your pain, and it does get easier to recognise the differences over time. Points one and two on this list may in fact be the hardest part of learning German if you’re a native English speaker, because for each case and noun, you would only use the word “the”. Here is a summary of noun genders per each case: Case When your sentence uses a noun, then you need to make sure you use both the correct gender and change it for the appropriate case. To give a quick summary of German cases: Case
CasesĬases are another German grammar concept that doesn’t exist in English, otherwise known as: nominative, accusative, dative, and genitive. The good news for English is that you always use the word “the”, as the concept of noun genders doesn’t exist. These noun genders are absolutely essential when learning German, because they change according to the rest of German grammar (more on this in the next section). One of the first differences you’ll notice is that while English only uses the word “the” to describe nouns, German has three noun genders : der (masculine), die (feminine), and das (neutral). The 7 differences between English and German grammar 1. If you’re planning to learn one or the other, here is a quick overview of grammar differences between English and German. Although they come from a similar place, they are still completely distinct languages with many core differences. English and German are languages that both originate from the Germanic language family.
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