German B1: Intermediate

At B1 speech stops being a run of separate sentences. An opinion comes with a reason, a story has a beginning and an end, and a misunderstanding can be cleared up without anyone stepping in to help.

Mistakes still happen, but they no longer get in the way of being understood. This is the level at which a language becomes usable at work.

Tenses and the subjunctive4

Tenses

B1Simple past (Präteritum)The past tense of books and reports — plus a handful of verbs that use it in speech.B1Past perfect (Plusquamperfekt)hatte or war plus a participle — for what had already happened when something else did.

The subjunctive

B1Subjunctive II: hätte, würdeThe form for what is not the case — and the reason German politeness sounds the way it does.B1würde + infinitiveA ready-made subjunctive for every verb — used where the proper form would be unrecognisable, and not where it would not.

Verbs: forms, modals, passive7

Cases, nouns and articles17

The four cases

B1The genitiveWritten German uses it; spoken German mostly says von plus dative instead.B1Two objects in one sentenceThe person is dative and the thing is accusative — and which comes first depends on whether they are nouns or pronouns.B1von instead of the genitiveSpoken German replaces the genitive with von plus dative, and writing does not.

Nouns: gender, plural, compounds

B1Weak masculine nounsA small group of masculines that takes -n in every case except one — and they are words you use daily.B1Nominalisation: das EssenAny infinitive can become a neuter noun, and any adjective can become one that still takes endings.B1Linking -s- and -n- in compoundsThe -s and -n that appear between the two halves of a compound, and what they are not.B1Borrowed words and their pluralsThe -s plural belongs to borrowed words, and Greek and Latin words keep their own endings.

Articles

B1Articles where English has noneAbstract nouns, seasons, meals and parts of the body take an article — and professions lose one.

Pronouns

B1Impersonal pronouns: man, esOne stands for anybody at all; the other stands for nothing and holds a position open.B1Relative and demonstrative pronounsThe same six words work as article, as relative pronoun and as a demonstrative that replaces a noun entirely.B1The pronoun es and its usesA subject that stands for nothing, a placeholder that disappears, and the one construction every learner needs: es gibt.B1Possessive pronouns: meinsWhen the noun is left out, the possessive takes the der-endings instead.

Prepositions

B1Prepositions with the genitiveThe register of written German — and a clear case where speech has already moved on.B1Prepositions that belong to a verbThe preposition is part of the verb, it fixes the case, and it almost never matches the English one.

Adjectives

B1Adjective endingsOne principle instead of three tables: the ending appears where the article did not.B1Adjectives used as nounsGerman turns an adjective into a noun by capitalising it — and it keeps its adjective endings for ever.B1Adjective endings with no articleWith no article in front, the adjective takes over the article’s own endings.

Sentence structure9

Word order

B1The sentence bracketThe verb opens the clause and something closes it — and everything else lives in between.B1Order of adverbs: TeKaMoLoWhen several adverbials meet, German has a default order: when, why, how, where.

Subordinate clauses

B1Relative clausesThe relative pronoun looks like the article, takes its gender from one clause and its case from the other, and can never be left out.B1Indirect questions and zu-clausesA question inside a sentence stops being a question — and a clause with no subject of its own takes zu.B1Conjunctions and word orderFive conjunctions change nothing at all; every other one sends the verb to the end.B1Purpose: um … zu, damitTwo ways to give a purpose, and one rule decides which: whether both halves have the same subject.B1If-clauses: wenn and fallsTwo words for if, one of them also meaning when — and a third form that drops the word entirely.

Negation

B1Negative words: nie, nichtsOne negative per clause — German does not stack them, and each positive word has a negative twin.B1Negative prefixes: un-, -losFour ways to build the opposite of a word, and the difference between -los and -frei.

Style and fine points4

Fine points and style

B1Linking words: deshalb, trotzdemAdverbs that connect sentences and take the first position, so the verb moves in front of the subject.B1Capital lettersGerman capitalises every noun — and the hard part is deciding what counts as one.B1Where the comma goesGerman commas are grammatical, not rhythmic: a clause boundary takes one whether or not anybody pauses.B1Two-part connectors: entweder … oder, weder … nochFive pairs that frame two alternatives or two additions — and the first half decides the word order when it opens a sentence.

Word lists at level B1

Lists: 19 · words: 935

Reading texts at level B1

Sentences from this level’s topics

Das ist das Haus meiner Eltern.That is my parents' house.

Kannst du mir das erklären?Can you explain that to me?

Das ist das Haus von meinen Eltern.That is my parents’ house.

Ich habe dem Nachbarn Bescheid gesagt.I let the neighbour know.

Practise level B1 only