Frauen lieben Schokolade, Männer Wiener Schnitzel: Warum wir uns trotzdem verstehen (German Edition)

Help us improve our Author Pages by updating your bibliography and submitting a new or current image and biography. Learn more at Author Central. Popularity Popularity Featured Price: Low to High Price: High to Low Avg. Warum wir uns trotzdem verstehen German Edition Nov 20, Available for download now. Stolperfallen von Auto bis Zahnpasta.

Only 1 left in stock - order soon. Provide feedback about this page. Page 60 Even in a world where hardly anything is what it seems, there are still certain kinds of nouns whose gender you can determine even if you haven t memorized their definite articles. Das Berlin, das Deutschland, das Paris—countries, towns, and cities all take the neuter article das. So do the letters of the alphabet: Page 61 Table 7. In German, there are certain nouns that never change their gender, regardless of whether they refer to a male or a female person or animal. Here are a few of them.

Believe it or not, that is a word—a compound noun, to be exact. Don t let these words frighten you. If you can recognize the individual nouns out of which the longer word is formed, you should have no trouble figuring out what the word means. Remember that when you string nouns together to form a compound noun, it s the last noun in the word that determines the gender for the entire noun. See if you can put the following nouns together to form compound nouns: How many childs do you have, or rather children?

Are they silly little gooses, uh, geese? And what about those fishes in the deep blue sea—aren t they fish? In German plurals seem to be confusing too, but there is a method to the madness. In German, there are rules about forming plurals, in fact, an abundance of rules. This is what makes forming plurals in German such a challenge. For now, remember that when a noun becomes plural in German, the noun marker becomes plural with it.

In German, the articles der, die, and das all become die in their plural form see Table 7. Page 63 Table 7. Everybody knows that if you ve got more than one cat you ve got cats and a year s supply of kitty litter ; if you buy more than one red Corvette you ve got Corvettes and a serious midlife crisis.

In German, however, it s a little trickier. Many nouns undergo a vowel modification. There are rules for forming plurals in German, however, and many exceptions to these rules. The best way to be sure that you are forming the plural of a noun correctly is to memorize it along with the noun and the article. The following tables give you some basic rules on how to form plurals.

When the nouns in Table 7. A majority of German nouns fall into this group, including most feminine nouns. The nouns in this group never. When the nouns ending in -e, -el, and -er in Table 7.

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All nouns referring to female persons or animals ending in -in double the n in the plural form. Page 64 Table 7. Some of the masculine nouns in the group undergo a vowel modification, as do the only two feminine nouns in this group. The neuter nouns don t change. All neuter and feminine nouns that end in -nis double the s in the plural form.

Wherever possible, vowels are modified. When they cannot be modified, as in the noun das Bild, the vowels e and i never take an umlaut in German the word takes the -er ending. Practice Those Plurals It s your first day in Berlin. Practice telling people what you re looking for in the plural. You need some peace and quiet. You are looking for parks.

Ich suche die Parks. You need to have your wisdom tooth removed.

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You ask someone where you can find dentists in Berlin. Tell this person that you need the names of a few dentists. You would like to relax somewhere and drink a cup of coffee. You ve never met them before. Ask two men sitting at a table if they re your friend s brothers. You re curious to find out what the weather will be like tomorrow. Stop at a kiosk and ask the man at the counter if all German newspapers have weather forecasts. You enter the lobby of a hotel. Ask the receptionist how expensive the rooms are.

In the following ads, which employers are seeking male employees? Which are seeking female employees? Which ads are open to applicants of both sexes? Eine Ausbildung in diesem Bereich ist erforderlich. Restaurant sucht Koch zur Aushilfe. Plural forms of nouns should be learned along with the noun and the definite article. Page 69 Chapter 8 The Case of the Declining Noun Before we start, we should probably warn you that this chapter introduces some new grammatical concepts and that it just might take some time before you fully understand these new concepts.

More understanding will come with time—and with exposure to the language. We all know that learning grammar can be about as exciting as watching grass grow, but lots of people have done it and are now happier, German-speaking individuals. Now that you have familiarized yourself with nouns, it s time to learn how to start forming sentences. In English, once you have the subject, the verb, and the direct object, this is an easy enough thing to do; you put the words in the right order and start talking.

It doesn t work this way in German, however, Word order—the position of words in a sentence—isn t as crucial in German as it is in English. The reason for this is that in German, nouns, pronouns, articles, adjectives, and prepositions occur in four cases: Page 70 The Four Cases in German.

You don t have to be Sherlock Holmes to figure out cases in German. Cases are the form nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and prepositions take in a sentence depending on their function. When we speak of cases and nouns, we are speaking of their articles, since it is primarily the article that comes before a noun that indicates its gender, number, and—you guessed it—case. There are four cases in German: Don t be put off. Basically, the nominative case indicates the subject of a sentence, the accusative case indicates the direct object of a sentence, and the dative case indicates the indirect object of a sentence.

It may look to you like the fish is eating the girl in the second sentence. Despite the position of the nouns, the noun markers remain the same in both sentences, clearly indicating that the fish is being eaten by the girl, and not that the girl is being eaten by the fish. Starting with the Nominative Case You begin with the nominative case.

Nominative is the case of the subject of the sentence, that is, of the noun or pronoun performing the action or undergoing the state of being of the verb. The Accusative Case The accusative case is the case you use with the direct object. The direct object refers to at who or what the action of the verb is being directed. You also use the accusative case with time and measuring data that answers the questions how short, how soon, how often, how much, how old, and so on.

The Dative Case The dative case can be used instead of a possessive adjective with parts of the body and after certain verbs, prepositions, and adjectives. It is used primarily to indicate the indirect object, however. The indirect object is the object for whose benefit or in whose interest the action of the verb is being performed. The Genitive Case The genitive case indicates possession. Conjugation does not happen with nouns and pronouns. Only verbs can be conjugated.

The term used to talk about the changes occurring in a word taking the four different cases is declension. Declension refers to the patterns of change followed by different groups of words in each of the four cases. When it comes to the declension of nouns in German, there are so many exceptions that at times it seems like there are as many Page 72 ways of grouping and classifying German noun declensions as there are actual German nouns. For simplicity s sake, we are going to stick to three very basic declensions of German nouns: Remember, this is only one way of grouping nouns and noun declensions.

The Case of the Definite Article In German, there are four possible declensions for each definite article remember, definite articles are used when you are speaking about a particular person or thing. The plural form of der, die, and das have its own separate declension. Some end with -e in the dative case. The declension of feminine nouns is a piece of cake. They remain unchanged when they are declined. Some take the ending -e in the dative case. Nouns in the dative case end in -n. There are only three possible declensions for the indefinite article, since indefinite articles do not occur in the plural.

A subject pronoun is, as its name suggests, the subject of a sentence; the verb must agree with it grammatically speaking, that is, in person and number—we all know verbs don t have opinions of their own. The German subject pronouns in Table 8. Generally, Sie is used with people you don t know, or to indicate respect. See if you can figure out which of the following questions you would address to your teacher and which you would use to initiate a conversation with a fellow student. What would happen if pronouns were outlawed? Are they meeting you there or are you meeting them later?

You ll note from the following examples that the gender of the pronoun must correspond with the gender of the noun. Page 76 Noun s Pronouns Stefan er Karin sie Mark und Frank sie Beate und Anne sie Julia und Klaus sie You can also use pronouns to replace the name of a common noun referring to a place, thing, or idea; note from the examples that the gender of the pronoun must correspond to the gender of the noun: Imagine that your boss marries a woman young enough to be his granddaughter.

You attend the wedding reception with your best friend. Toward the end of the Feier fay-uhR , his ex-wife barges in and takes a hatchet to the wedding cake. Eventually, she is subdued and escorted to the door. The guests recover their poise and the festivities continue. You and your friend don t get a chance to talk about this scandalous turn of events until you are in the elevator on your way to the parking lot. You don t know exactly who is in the elevator with you, so you try to keep your use of people s names to a minimum.

Which pronouns would you use to talk about the in-laws? Which pronoun would you use to talk about the hatchet? The other people in the elevator? Die Musik war heiter. Die Mutter des Ehemanns weinte. Der Onkel der Ehefrau war betrunken. The gender of the pronoun must correspond with the gender of the noun. Try referring back to this chapter as you work through this book and assimilating the basic concepts of cases and declensions gradually. There s No Place Like. Deutschland In the previous chapter you learned about determining the gender, number, and case of nouns, and you were introduced to German pronouns.

Now, it s time to move on to verbs. Verbs, the Arnold Schwarzeneggers of the language set, convey action in a sentence. To communicate it is crucial to develop a basic understanding of verbs. In this chapter, you ll be introduced to weak and strong verbs. What s the Subject? You sign up for a special travel package to Germany that includes hotel accommodations and airfare.

What this package also includes—and this becomes clear to you as you are on the airplane listening to others who have signed up for this package deal—is that you ll be spending your week of vacation with 10 other people, all with their own agendas. You want to take quiet, relaxing strolls through churches and parks. To express what people want to do, you need verbs, and verbs, of course, require a subject: When a sentence takes the imperative form, the form of a command, the subject you is understood: Subjects can be either nouns or pronouns that replace nouns: The man ate the entire chicken.

He ate the entire chicken. Verb Basics It s easier to understand how a plane takes off if you know something about its parts. It s the same with verbs. Here are some basic things you should know about verbs before you start using them. So, what do flowers and verbs have in common? The answer is, stems. The stem of a verb isn t long and green, though. The stem of a verb refers to what you get when you remove Page 81 the ending -en from the German infinitive.

The stem vowel refers to the vowel in this stem. In English, for example, when you conjugate the verb run I run, you run, she runs it retains the same stem vowel throughout the conjugation. What exactly is meant here by conjugation? Verbs in Motion If you were given a week of absolutely commitment-free time, what would you do with it?

Would you go scuba diving? Would you chase butterflies? Or would you ride through Italy on a tandem bicycle? No matter what you do, you need verbs to express action, motion, or states of being. In German, the most common way of grouping verbs is weak, strong, or mixed. When verbs are conjugated, a relatively predictable pattern of endings is attached to the stem of weak verbs. Strong verbs have a relatively predictable pattern of endings when they are conjugated in the present tense the form a verb takes to indicate that action is occurring in the present , but both the stem and the endings become irregular they don t follow a set pattern in the past tense.

Mixed verbs have features of both weak and strong verbs. The rest of this chapter examines weak and strong verbs in the present tense. Mixed verbs are discussed in Chapter Followers In Chapter 5, you learned about the infinitive, or unconjugated, form of verbs. Weak verbs are verbs that, when conjugated, follow a set pattern of rules and retain the same stem vowel throughout. Let s follow fly through its full conjugation.

Person Singular Plural First I fly we fly. Think of weak verbs as timid, law-abiding creatures that would never cross the street when the light is red. This is the great thing for those of you embarking on learning the German language about weak verbs: Once you ve learned this pattern and the few exceptions to this pattern , you should be able to conjugate weak verbs in German without too much difficulty. To conjugate weak verbs, drop the -en from the infinitive and then add the following endings: See if you can use the correct form of the verbs in the following sentences.

Remember, the verb must agree with the subject! Read through them a few times, and see if you can commit them to memory. You can t tell the difference between a strong verb and a weak verb just by looking at them. The only way you can distinguish between them is to look up their conjugations and see whether the stem changes. Some strong verbs change their stem vowel in the present tense; the endings, however, are the same for both weak and strong verbs in all tenses. In the present tense, there are some changes that occur in the second and third person in the stem vowel: Page 85 Table 9.

Read through them a few times, as you did with the weak verbs. You shouldn t have too much trouble memorizing them—many of them are near cognates! Page 86 Table 9. Ask Me Anything Okay, now go back to where you were at the beginning of this chapter, planning a trip. Suppose you re planning another trip—alone, this time.

You ll probably find that there are a lot of questions you ll want to ask when you get where you re going. You ll deal with more complicated questions in Chapter For now, stick to the easy questions—the ones that can be answered with a simple yes or no. There are other ways, besides the confused look on your face, to show that you re asking a question: Intonation One of the easiest ways to indicate you re asking a question is by simply raising your voice slightly at the end of the sentence.

To do this, speak with a rising inflection. Du denkst an die Reise? Dew denkst An dee Ray-zuh Are you thinking about the trip? Page 87 Nicht Wahr? One easy way of forming questions in German is by adding the tag nicht wahr niHt vahR to your statements. Inversion The final way of forming a question is by inversion. Inversion is what you do when you reverse the word order of the subject nouns or pronouns and the conjugated form of the verb. If you re up to the challenge of inversion, follow these rules:.

It s awkward and rarely done. Read the following examples and see if you can get a feel for how inversion works. Du gehst nach Hause.

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Gehst du nach Hause? Wir reisen nach Berlin. Reisen wir nach Berlin? Remember that whether you are using intonation, nicht wahr, or inversion, you are asking for exactly the same information: You re in an airport and you need information.

After waiting in line at the information counter, it s finally your turn. See if you can use inversion to provide the questions for the following statements. Das Flugzeug fliegt um 10 Uhr. The plane leaves at Fliegt das Flugzeug um 10 Uhr? Das Ticket kostet DM. The ticket costs DM. This is the terminal for international flights. Die Flugnummer steht auf dem Ticket.

The flight number is indicated on the ticket. Es gibt Toiletten auf dieser Etage. There are bathrooms on this floor. Der Flug daurert zwei Stunden. The flight is two hours long. Rou-Chuhn zee Nein, ich rauche nicht. If you want to form simple sentences in the present tense, you ll need to have as many verbs as possible at the tip of your tongue. One of the first things you ll acquire—a working knowledge of common introductory phrases used by German speakers in a variety of situations—can be used as a tool to start conversations and expand your vocabulary.

Chapter 10 Take Me to Your Leiter: In the previous chapter, you learned how to create simple German sentences using subject nouns, pronouns, and verbs and how to ask basic yes or no questions. Now you re going to put some of what you learned to work. It s time to start engaging in conversation. You are sitting alone on an airplane, admiring the view of clouds and sky through the window. The person in the seat next to you is German; it s time to use this opportunity to test some of your newly acquired language skills. Greetings and Salutations Let s face it: If this human being is sitting next to you on the airplane, all the better because he can t get away.

Each and every German speaker you meet before arriving at your destination will give you the chance to practice what you ve learned so far. You may find the following conversation openers useful. Formal Greetings and Salutations It is sometimes considered rude to use the du form of address with someone who isn t a friend or relative. Because you don t know the person you re speaking to, it is definitely best to take the formal approach. It is worth noting, however, that younger generations are tending more and more to use the informal du form.

German Pronunciation Meaning Guten Tag. Wie geht es Ihnen? Informal Greetings and Salutations. You can now use the following phrases: German Pronunciation Meaning Hallo! Wie geht es dir? Was machst du so? Ich kann nicht klagen. Mal so, mal so. Mahl zo, mahl zo. What Planet Are You From? If, after you have made your initial introductions, you find the person to whom you are speaking interesting, you will probably find yourself wondering about his idiosyncrasies—at the peculiar lilt in his voice when he speaks, at certain gestures you have never seen anyone make before, and at his use of idioms.

Eventually, you are going to want to know where the person to whom you are speaking is from. You also are going to want to respond correctly when he asks you where you are from. To do this, you will need to familiarize yourself with the irregular verb kommen ko-muhn see Table Page 94 Informal use: Ich komme aus… iH ko-muh ous… I come from… Keep in mind that most countries, towns, and cities are neuter nouns and take the article das. Some other exceptions are: We ll discuss countries further in Chapter When you use countries, cities, or towns with the neuter article, drop the article das: Ich komme aus New York.

The articles are not dropped, and they must be declined correctly that is to say, they must take the appropriate case. Die USA, which is plural, takes the dative plural article den:.

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Ich komme aus den USA. Ich komme aus der Schweiz. Ich komme aus dem Libanon. After you ve established where someone is from, you will probably want to find out more about what he does. You ll probably have to recite a list of professions in the hopes that sooner or later you ll happen on the right one. Was sind Sie von Beruf? VAs sint zee fon bey-Rewf What is your profession? Was bist du von Beruf?

VAs bist dew fon bey-Rewf What is your profession? Ich bin… iH bin … I am… Page 96 Table Use It or Lose It You ve been introduced to the verb sein and to some of the most common professions. But what s the use of all this newly acquired information if you can t use it? Try putting what you ve learned to use by translating the following sentences into English. Page 97 Get Nosy When you learn a new language, you often revert to what feels like a somewhat infantile state of existence.

You have a limited vocabulary and, at best, a somewhat sketchy understanding of grammar. One of the advantages of learning a new language is that you can get away with acting a little childish. Start asking about everything. People will think you re just trying to expand your vocabulary see Table He or she has been glancing over in your direction for some time now. You ve finally mustered up the courage to say something.

What s your opening line? Here are some other ways of breaking the ice. Formal Informal English Mit wem reisen Sie?

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Von wem sprechen Sie? Wie lange reisen Sie? See if you can ask the questions that the paragraphs answer. In the first paragraph, use the informal du to ask questions about Klaus. In the second paragraph, use the third person singular sie to ask questions about Lynn. Don t forget what you learned about inversion in Chapter 9! Ich reise mit meiner Schwester nach Hamburg. Sie reist einen Monat lang durch Deutschland. The greetings you use depend on your familiarity with a person. Page Chapter 11 I d Like to Get to Know You By now you should be well on your way to introducing yourself and your friends to other people.

But what if your mother, father, uncle, and in-laws are all traveling with you, peering over your shoulder every time you strike up a conversation? Perhaps the best thing to do is to find people to introduce them to so you can sneak away and finally have a really intimate conversation with someone. That s the first thing you ll learn to do in this chapter. The next thing you ll learn about is how to find about other people. One way of doing this is by asking the object of your curiosity what they think about themselves: Do they consider themselves to be creative, intelligent, sensitive, or adventurous?

To ask someone what they think about themselves, you re going to need adjectives, and to use adjectives correctly you must decline them properly, just as you did with nouns in Chapter 8. This is my wife. Start practicing now with the following words for family members in Table We re all somebody s something. You re your mother s daughter or son, your uncle s nephew or niece, your wife s husband or your husband s wife.

There are two principal ways of showing possession in German: The genitive case is used to show possession or dependence. To do this, you must decline the noun and the noun marker correctly. Have you forgotten what noun marker means? See Chapter 8 for how to decline masculine, feminine, and neuter nouns in the genitive case. Here is an abbreviated version of the declension of the definite articles der, die, and das and of the plural article die. When you use proper names or are speaking of family members possessing someone or something, you can use the genetive -s to show possession add the -s without an apostrophe to the end of the word.

Das ist der Ehemann der Frau. The child s mother is beautiful. Mine, All Mine The possessive adjectives my, your, his, her, and so on, show that something belongs to somebody. In German, possessive adjectives agree in number and gender with the noun they are describing that is to say, with the thing being possessed rather than with the possessor. Keep in mind that in the singular, the endings Page for possessive adjectives are the same ones used for the declension of the indefinite article ein.

Er liebt seinen Vater. He loves his mother. Er liebt seine Mutter. Sie liebt ihren Vater.

Zee leept ee-Ruhn fah-tuhR She loves her mother. Sie liebt ihre Mutter. Zee leept ee-Ruh moo-tuhR Table What s your favorite color, song, or city? The word lieblings is linked to the noun to form a compound noun: Lieblingsfarbe leep-links-faR-buh for favorite color; Lieblingslied leep-links-leet for favorite song; Lieblingsstadt leep-links-shtAt for favorite city.

Here s an example: Mein Lieblingsschauspieler ist Robert de Niro. Page Let Me Introduce You Introductions keep people from standing on opposite sides of the room staring at their feet all evening. They break more ice than the Titanic and, whether you like them or not—let s face it—it s pretty tough to get by without them. Practice a few of the following phrases and see if you can t get the hang of introducing yourself. German Pronunciation English Darf ich mich vorstellen? Kennen Sie kennst du meine Schwester Anna? Kommen Sie komm , ich stelle Ihnen dir meine Schwester Anna vor.

Das ist meine Schwester Anna. If you are being introduced at a business meeting to the head of a company, you will be given a formal introduction. Your response, in turn, should be expressed formally. Here are some formal ways of responding to an introduction. Es freut mich, Sie kennenzulernen. You re at a party and a friend wants to introduce you to someone; you ll probably find yourself caught up in an informal introduction.

Here are some informal ways of responding to an introduction. Danach hier zusammengestellt wurde, germeister Klaus Schneeber- im Alten Rathaus. Das war mit ein behandelt werden. Nebengasse der Neunkirchner was den Innenausbau mit der Garden Inn, fertig eingerichtet. Zukunftsweisender Beschluss der Landeskliniken-Holding: Die neue A-Klasse mit Original like you. Und dank der Smartphone-Connectivity bist du einfach immer verbunden mit allem, was wichtig ist. Jetzt bei deinem Mercedes-Benz Partner. Neustadt, Wohlfahrtgasse 22, Tel.

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