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EveryLingua

A1

Anfänger

Auf dieser Stufe reicht die Sprache für alles, was man in den ersten Tagen braucht: den eigenen Namen, die Herkunft, den Beruf, die Familie, Zahlen, Uhrzeiten, Essen und Trinken.

Die Sätze sind kurz und stehen für sich. Wer hier ankommt, kann sagen was ist, was er hat und was er möchte — noch nicht, was gestern war.

Noch ohne Familie24

The four cases

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A1What a case is, and what the four are forFour jobs a noun can do, four sets of endings — and one table that is worth learning before any of them.A1The nominativeThe one doing it — and the one the verb agrees with.A1The accusativeOne article changes, and that one change is most of what the accusative is.

Nouns: gender, plural, compounds

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A1The three gendersNot a property of the thing — a property of the word.A1The pluralThere is no default. The plural is learned with the noun, like the gender.

Articles

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A1The definite articleSix distinct words doing sixteen jobs — fewer forms than the table suggests.A1ein, kein and the possessivesOne pattern shared by nine words — and three cells where it says nothing at all.A1When preposition and article mergeTen fused forms that are not shortcuts but the normal way to say it.A1mein, dein, sein, ihrNine possessives that all decline like ein — and one word that means both his and her.

Pronouns

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A1Personal pronounsThree cases each, and the dative forms used far more often than English suggests.

The verb: present tense and stem

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A1The present tenseFive endings on a stem — and one tense doing the work of two English ones.A1sein and habenIrregular, unavoidable, and needed twice over — as verbs and as the machinery of the past tense.

Tenses

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A1The Perfekthaben or sein plus a participle at the end — and it is how Germans talk about yesterday.

Modal verbs

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A1The six modal verbsOne irregular pattern, six verbs, and the main verb waiting at the end of the sentence.A1mögen and möchtenOne verb for liking something, another form of it for wanting something — and they are not interchangeable.

Word order

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A1The verb comes secondOne element in front of the verb — any one you like, but only one.A1QuestionsNo do, no does, no did — the verb simply moves.A1Giving instructionsThree imperative forms, one of which keeps its pronoun and two of which drop it.

Prepositions

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A1Prepositions with the accusativeFive words, one case, no exceptions — worth memorising as a line.A1Prepositions with the dativeThe seven that carry most of everyday German — and the contractions that come with them.

Adjectives

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A1Adjectives after seinAfter sein, werden and bleiben an adjective never changes — so learn this position first.

Negation

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A1kein and nichtA noun takes kein. Everything else takes nicht. That is the whole decision.

The finishing touches

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A1Numbers, dates and timesThree systems that are regular, and each of which runs in the opposite direction from English.A1What the spelling tells you about the soundGerman spelling is nearly regular, so a written word says how it is pronounced — once eight rules are known.