Lieben Sie Stress? (German Edition)

But the genitive case remains almost obligatory in written communication, public speeches and anything that is not explicitly colloquial, and it is still an important part of the Bildungssprache language of education. Television programs and movies often contain a mix of both, dative substitution and regular genitive, depending on how formal or "artistic" the program is intended to be. The use of the dative substitution is more common in southern German dialects, whereas Germans from northern regions where Luther's Bible-German had to be learned like a foreign language at that time use the genitive more frequently.

Though it has become quite common not to use the genitive case when it would formally be required, many Germans know how to use it and generally do so. Especially among the higher educated, it is considered a minor embarrassment to be caught using the dative case incorrectly. So it is not typically recommended to avoid the genitive when learning German: The historical development of the Standardsprache has to some extent re-established the genitive into the language, and not necessarily just in written form. For example, the genitive is rarely used in colloquial German to express a possessive relation e.

Furthermore, some verbs take the genitive case in their object, but this is often ignored by some native speakers; instead, they replace these genitive objects with substitutional prepositional constructions: A German book series called Der Dativ ist dem Genitiv sein Tod "The dative is to the genitive its death" alludes to this phenomenon being called "genitive's death struggle" by the author in its title.

As is apparent, the book uses dialect, i. This is, by the way, not how most Standard German speakers would colloquially replace the genitive case; rather, this usage is prevalent in some German regional dialects, such as Bavarian. Standard German speakers would construct Der Dativ ist der Tod vom Genitiv , which is being literally the English " of the Genitive" incorrect in the Standard as well, but far less incriminating. Linguistically, the thesis of the genitive case dying out can easily be refuted. Indeed, the genitive case has been widely out of use in most dialects of the German language for centuries.

Only the replacement of dialects by a colloquial Standard German is new, and the use of the genitive case in the written language is unaffected. There are, however, legitimate dative constructions to indicate possession, as in "Dem Knaben ist ein Buch zu eigen ". The construction zu eigen , virtually appears only in Latin beginners' translations, as the sentence should indicate puero liber est. Some dialects have "Dem Knaben ist ein Buch" which is literally a dativus possessivus. If a genitive is unmarked and without article practically, in the plural , usage of von , followed by the dative, is not only legitimate but required, as in: In that case, "Belange der Minderheiten" would contain a definite article, which does not reflect the intended indefiniteness of Minderheiten ; "Minderheiten" itself is an unmarked plural, i.

Additionally, the dative case is commonly used to indicate possession of bodily parts that are the direct objects of an action. Constructions such as Er brach sich den Arm. In English, this construction only occurs in the construction to look someone in the eye and its variants. The dative case is used for the indirect object of a verb. The sentence "Ich gebe meinem Sohn e einen Hund" "I give my son a dog" contains a subject "ich", a verb "gebe", an indirect object "meinem Sohn e "; and a direct object "einen Hund". Dative also focuses on location.

See accusative or dative prepositions below. German places strong emphasis on the difference between location and motion; the accusative case is used for motion and the dative for location. There are four important verbs that show this dichotomy: The case of a noun after a preposition is decided by that preposition. Certain prepositions, called "two way prepositions", have objects either in dative or accusative, depending on whether the use implies position e. A German nominal phrase , in general, consists of the following components in the following order: Of course, most noun phrases are not this complicated; adjectives, numbers, genitive attributes, positions, relative clauses and emphasizers are always optional.

A nominal phrase contains at least a cardinal number, an adjective, a pronoun or a noun. It always has an article, except if it is an indefinite plural noun or refers to an uncountable mass. If the noun is uncountable , an article is not used; otherwise, the meaning of the sentence changes. A nominal phrase can be regarded a single unit. It has a case, a number, and a gender.

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Case and number depend on the context, whereas the main noun determines the gender. A nominal phrase may have a genitive attribute , for example to express possession. This attribute may be seen as merely another nominal phrase in the genitive case which may hang off another nominal phrase. A direct translation of "Der Beruf des alten Mannes" would be "the profession of the old man. It is found in poetry, especially if helpful for metrical and rhyming purposes. A nominal phrase may contain a "position phrase"; this may be seen as merely another nominal phrase with a preposition or postposition or a pronominal adverb see Adverbial phrases.

The still-at-the-beginning-of-the-course-relatively-small-but-nevertheless-noticeable communication difficulties , the communication difficulties still relatively small at the beginning of the course, but nevertheless noticeable. These are a feature of written particularly educated German. One also might hear them in the context of formal oral communications as well such as news broadcasts, speeches, etc. A nominal phrase will often have a relative clause. Aside from their highly inflected forms, German relative pronouns are less complicated than English.

There are two varieties. The more common one is based on the definite article der , die , das , but with distinctive forms in the genitive dessen , deren and in the dative plural denen. Etymologically this is related to English that. The second, which is more literary and used for emphasis, is the relative use of welcher , welche , welches , comparable with English which. As in most Germanic languages, including Old English, both of these inflect according to gender, case and number.

They get their gender and number from the noun they modify, but the case from their function in their own clause.

The relative pronoun dem is neuter singular to agree with Haus , but dative because it follows a preposition in its own clause. On the same basis, it would be possible to substitute the pronoun welchem. However, German uses the uninflecting was "what" as a relative pronoun when the antecedent is alles , etwas or nichts "everything", "something", "nothing" , or when the antecedent is an entire clause.

The same applies to indirect questions. The inflected forms depend on the number, the case and the gender of the corresponding noun.

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Articles have the same plural forms for all three genders. In relation to nouns, cardinal numbers are placed before adjectives, if any. If the number is relatively low, it is usually not combined with an indefinite plural article e. Personal pronouns of the first and second person are placed before numbers. Personal pronouns of the third person cannot be used with numbers. The cardinal number "one" is partly identical in form and inflection to the indefinite article. The number is distinguished from the article in speech by intonation and in writing sometimes by emphasis e.

The numbers zwei two and drei three and sometimes other numbers as well have case endings in some instances. Where an adjective would have weak endings, numbers do not have endings. If an adjective had strong endings, these numbers may also have strong endings in the genitive case. If there is no other word carrying the strong ending of the genitive plural, the numbers must carry it.

If these numbers are center of a nominal phrase in the dative plural and no other word carries case markers, they may carry dative endings.

German adjectives normally precede the noun they are modifying. German adjectives have endings which depend on the case, number and in the singular gender of the nominal phrase. There are three sets of endings: Which set is used depends on what kind of word the adjective comes after, and sometimes also on the gender and case. Like articles , adjectives use the same plural endings for all three genders. Participles may be used as adjectives and are treated in the same way. In contrast to Romance languages , adjectives are only declined in the attributive position that is, when used in nominal phrases to describe a noun directly.

Predicative adjectives , separated from the noun by "to be", for example, are not declined and are indistinguishable from adverbs. There are three degrees of comparison: The declension of an adjective depends not only on the gender, number and case of the noun it modifies, but also on whether the indefinite article, definite article or no article is used with it. The following table shows two examples which exemplify all three cases:.

Declension of adjectives is mandatory even in proper names. The name of Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, for instance, changes into "das Kunsthistorische Museum" when preceded by a definite article. Adjectival bynames given to historical or legendary persons must also be declined according to their grammatical role in a phrase or sentence. The pronouns of the third person may be used to replace nominal phrases. These have the same gender , number and case as the original nominal phrase.

This goes for other pronouns, too.

The reflexive personal pronoun in English, "myself" etc. Uncapitalized also in the 2nd person formal. German verbs may be classified as either weak , if they form their past tense with a dental consonant inflection, or strong , if they exhibit a vowel gradation ablaut. Most verbs of both types are regular, though various subgroups and anomalies do arise. However, textbooks often class all strong verbs as irregular. There are more than strong and irregular verbs, and there is a gradual tendency for strong verbs to become weak.

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