A1 · 40 Wörter

People and family

The people you talk about on the first day — and the nouns whose gender you can actually predict.

Family words are the first place where German gender behaves the way an English speaker expects: der Vater and die Mutter, der Sohn and die Tochter. That is comforting and slightly misleading — it is true for people and stops being true for everything else, as das Mädchen demonstrates on the very same page. The other thing worth noticing here is the -in ending. Add it to a masculine noun for a person and you get the feminine: Freund becomes Freundin, Lehrer becomes Lehrerin. It is fully productive, so it works on a job title you met five minutes ago.

Die Wörter

Verb (5)

arbeitento workVerbA1

Sie arbeitet bei einer Bank.She works at a bank.

The stem ends in -t, so the du and er forms add an -e-: du arbeitest, er arbeitet.

kennento know (a person or place)VerbA1

Kennst du seine Schwester?Do you know his sister?

German splits English "know": "kennen" for people and places, "wissen" for facts.

heißento be calledVerbA1

Wie heißt deine Tochter?What is your daughter called?

The stem ends in -ß, so the du form is "heißt" and not "heißst".

liebento loveVerbA1

Sie liebt ihre Arbeit.She loves her job.

besuchento visitVerbA1

Wir besuchen am Sonntag meine Tante.We are visiting my aunt on Sunday.

Inseparable prefix: the participle is "besucht" without ge-.

Adverb (1)

zusammentogetherAdverbA1

Wir wohnen zusammen in einer WG.We share a flat together.

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