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Nouns and Articles
German nouns have three genders (masculine, feminine and neuter), and two numbers, singular and plural. Noun gender in German is only related loosely to word endings. A noun's definite article (German words corresponding to the English "the"), should be learned at the same time to remember the gender: "der Mann" (the man), "die Frau" (the woman) and "das Boot" (the boat). These three nouns also illustrate a number of ways that German forms plurals: "die Männer" (the men), "die Frauen" (the women) and "die Boote" (the boats). Note that the plural nominative definite article is always "die," no matter what the gender.
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Adjectives
There are two types of adjectives in German, predicative and attributive. The easiest to deal with are predicative adjectives; these are used after the copula (the verb "to be"), and do not take endings. Examples in German: "der Stuhl ist weiß" ("the chair is white"), "die Frau ist klug" ("the woman is smart") and "Das Meer ist groß" ("the sea is large").
Attributive adjectives are more difficult to use because they take endings. These endings are influenced by a number of factors, including whether the noun is preceded by a definite article, an indefinite article or nothing, as well as the gender, number and case. For instance, in the nominative case, "the white chair" is "der weiße Stuhl," "a white chair" is "ein weißer Stuhl," and "white chair" is simply "weißer Stuhl."
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Pronouns
Many German pronouns will look familiar to English speakers, but the system is somewhat more complex than English. The nominative personal pronouns of German are: "ich" (I), "du" (you, singular informal), "er" (he), "sie" (she), "es" (it), Sie (you, singular formal), "wir" (we), "ihr" (you, plural informal), "sie" (they) and Sie (you, plural formal). "Sie," when used to address one or more persons formally, takes a third-person plural verb.
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Verbs
German verbs are divided into weak, strong or mixed paradigms. Weak verbs are predominant and are highly regular. Strong verbs have stem changes as they are conjugated, but are not truly irregular. The tendency over time is for strong verbs to lose these stem changes and become weak verbs, according to Vistawide. Mixed verbs have some of the features of both weak and strong verbs. The only truly irregular verb in German is "sein," which means "to be."
The present tense of "sprechen" (to speak) is: ich spreche, du sprichst, er/sie/es spricht, Sie sprechen, wir sprechen, ihr sprecht, sie Sprechen and Sie Sprechen.
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Case System
German nouns and their articles, adjectives and pronouns are all declined, or changed, in four cases: nominative (subject), accusative (direct object), dative (indirect object) and genitive ("of" plus other uses).
The nominative case shows who or what is doing something. For instance, in the sentence "Er liest ein Buch" ("He is reading a book"), "er" is in the nominative because "he" is performing the action (reading the book). In the sentence "Es ist ein Buch" ("It is a book"), "es" and "ein buch" are in the nominative because the subject (es) is what follows (ein Buch).
In the sentence "Er liest ein Buch" ("He is reading a book") "ein Buch" is in the accusative because the book is the direct object of the verb "read."
In the sentence "Er kauft ihnen ein Buch" ("He's buying them a book"), we can see three of these cases: "er" is in the nominative because "he" is performing the action; the accusative is "ein buch"; the dative is "ihnen" (them) because the book is bought for them.
The genitive case is used to demonstrate "of" (possession) in German: "Das ist der Stuhl meines Lehrers" ("This is my teacher's chair")--"meines Lehrers" is in the genitive because "der Stuhl" belongs to him.
German cases are also governed by prepositions and other verbs.
