Deutsch Lernen! Learn German

[Chirapaq]

Hello, I'm Chirapaq.

In this topic I'll be your tutor to get started you with learning German, what to look for and how to improve.

Whether you're deciding to learn German, getting started, restarting German, or like Germany, Switzerland and/or Austria culture. I hope to make the best out of these lessons to get you up and learning. I am not only doing this to teach others the language but also to keep myself motivated. I love the German language so much and I think it's so easy to learn (which makes sense, I'll explain later). I won't get into culture here since there is already a culture forum in the guild.

Note: I will keep posting sections which is why I rather not have any post here. Please do not post in here.

Contents

Resources
You already know German
Articles
Pronounciations
Greetings


Sind Sie bereit?  

[Chirapaq]

//* Resources *//

How did you learn your native language? Did you know it before going to school?
Where you able to speak with your parents, teachers, friends before actually learning it?
YES! And you don't think about it either. You speak it naturally.

We start off by hearing it for years and later learn to speak it and then in school
we learn the grammar. I think that is better than doing it backwards. You agree?
It makes more sense to me.

So what I suggest is to look for some podcast to get started. I like FSI to begin with. They speak at a pace that I think is fair to be able to get use to when listening to other audio when learning. I think it's fast but still understandable. There is SO MUCH audio and it's all free. You can download it to your phone or mp3 player.

I love the Deutche Welle website.
It's great for news in Germany and other countries. They have a whole set of websites.
The DW.de site has a learn German section and that is how I got started. I completely
recommend going there and checking it out. They have all kinds of things for all levels.
Take the test they have and get sorted into a level: A1-C2 (I believe). Listen to the podcast. I think that is the best way to learn ANY language and they have this. Make sure you listen to Audio Trainer if you have problems with pronunciation.

If you don't mind buying, I also recommend Teach Yourself. I have the Complete German book with
2 audio disks.

A free online German Flashcards site (free and premium features) that uses colors to help remember word gender easier.

Well, here in this post I gave you some resources to get you started. If you'd like to practice more
or still don't know where to start, stay here. Or just start here anyway.

 

[Chirapaq]

//* You already know German *//

You may have not known this but German and English are related. They are in the same language
family. That is why I said it makes sense that it's easy to me. It should be easy because of this.
Also I'm sure you already know some German words and may not even know it.

Kindergarten. Haha The first that we learn right?
-Schadenfreude-
-Zeitgeist-
-Kaputt-
-Wanderlust-

I'm sure there are others.

I love when German has a word for a sentence or explaination. In English I always wonder if there's a
word for that. As in I wonder if there's a word for someone that make excuses a lot. In German there
probably is!

Here are the meanings of these words:

der Kindergarten - I think that is self explainatary.

Schadenfreude - To enjoy someone elses embarrassment, fear, etc.

der Zeitgeist - spirit of the times


Kaputt - a word you say when something is broken. Like the television is broken or not working.
Kaputt isn't actually the word you would use for when someone
is not working (a job) or if your leg is broken.

Wanderlust - a strong desire to travel.

 

[Chirapaq]

//* Der-Die-Das *//

Der is for masculine words
Die is for feminine words
Das is for neutrual words

There is no specific way to predict if a noun has der die or das for it. This is why it's necessary to learn them with the word.

 

[Chirapaq]

//* Personal Nouns *//

ich - I
du - you
er/sie/es - he/she/it
wir - we
ihr - you
Sie - you

 

[Chirapaq]

//* Articles *//

So you've noticed der before some words.
You know those articles we have in English called the, a and an.

It's like that in German: der, die, das.

That is one of the things that scare people when learning German. I'd say don't make a big deal
out of it. You'll learn it eventually but when learning a word, make sure you know if it's der, die or das
in front of it. It'll help a lot.

Vocabulary

der Mann - man
die Frau - woman
das Mädchen - girl

der Junge - boy
der Hund - dog
die Katze - cat
das Haus - house

 

[Chirapaq]

//* Pronounciation *//

You may not have learned the alphabet but I think it's better to just learn the pronounciations
first. I hate written pronounciations because I think it's better to HEAR how it's spoken.

You can go listen to audio but here I will explain how certain letters are pronounced.

J - J is like the Y in English. Have you heard the name Johannes. It's pronounced Yohannes.

R - The r's. Oh why do the R's in languages have to be difficult. This one is worth practicing.
The r in German, depending where it's places (like in English) can be pronounced differently.

Like
Rot - Red
das Reich - Empire

It's more in the breath than the teeth. It's like trying to spit with your mouth open. You know in some
other languages when they sound like they are spitting a word out. Like that.

Also words like

die Kinder (from das Kind) - Children

It's like in English, we know there's an R there but we don't exaggerated it. It's like just saying Kinde or
Kinda. Get it?

S- Is sometimes pronounced like a Z. Not much explanation here.

V - This one is pronounced like F.

Bevor - before

See? Easy.

W - This one is pronounced like the English V.

der Winter - Winter

Winter is prounouced like Vinter

Piece of cake!

German umlauts

ä ï ö ü ß
ae ie oe ue ss
If you can't type those just put an e after the letter. Which is also used and completely acceptable in German.

I can't remember what key to type when using ß but the code is alt + 0223

 

[Chirapaq]

//* Greetings *//

Here I will give you more vocabulary and teach you ways to introduce yourself and understand when others do so.

-Hallo. Mein name ist Ani. Ich komme aus den USA. Und woher kommen Sie?
-Ich komme aus Östrerreich.

-Guten Tag, Zuzka. Wie geht's?
-Danke, ich bin gut! Und dir?
-Ich bin auch gut. Auf Wiedersehen!

I put up two dialogs. I will not translate but I will give vocabulary. I don't want to just translate and you probably were able to figure it out just by reading it. Plus I rather you not try to learn by translation.

das Vokabular

mein - My

komme - comes from the verb kommen used in the first person form

aus - from, out of, made from [something], of

woher - where...from or from where

Sie - you the formal 'you' or plural 'you'. It's best to use that when meeting someone. Use it for people you do not know. That is important to remember. But as you learn, you will see it a lot.

Guten Tag - A greeting for Hello to use at any time of the day.

Wie geht's - The whole phrase is Wie geht es dir? How are you? How's it going? Wie means how.

Danke - Thank you

ich bin - I am. Bin comes from sein - to be used in the first person form.

gut - Good

auch - Also

Auf Wiedersehen - Goodbye! See you later! See you again!

mehr (more) Vokabular

Guten Morgan - Good morning

Guten Abend - good evening

Gute Nacht - Good night

Ich heisse [heiße]... - I call myself (my name is)...

bitte - please

Wie heißen Sie? Wie ist Ihr Name - What are you called? What is your name?

Ja - Yes

Nein - No

Wo - where

Danke schön - thank you

 

[Chirapaq]

//* Days *//

der Tag - Day
täglich - daily
der Morgen - morning
der Nachmittag - afternoon
der Abend - evening
die Nacht - night

die Wochentage - Weekdays
die Woche - week
das Wochenende - weekend
wöchenlich - weekly
Montag - Monday
Dienstag - Tuesday
Mittwoch - Wednesday
Donnerstag - Thursday
Freitag - Friday
Samstag - Saturday
Sonntag - Sunday

der Monat - month
monatlich - monthly
Januar - January
Februar - February
März - March
April - April
Mai - May
Juni - June
Juli - July
August - August
September - September
Oktober - October
November - November
Dezember - December

das Jahr - year
jährlich - yearly
das Jahrhundert - centuries

das Datum - date
gestern - yesterday
morgen [not Morgen] - tomorrow

Now to celebrate for expanding your German vocabulay, here is a special song for our lesson: Megaherz - März

 

[Chirapaq]

//* Numbers - Measurements *//

die Zahl - number [Used for amount, counting]
die Nummer - number [Used for something assigned like, a room number]
zahllos - countless
zahlbar - payable
zahlreich - numberous

null - 0
eins - 1
zwei - 2
drei - 3
vier - 4
fünf - 5
sechs - 6
sieben - 7
acht - 8
neun - 9
zehn - 10
elf - 11
zwölf - 12
dreizehn - 13
vierzehn - 14
fünfzehn - 15
sechszehn - 16
siebzehn - 17
achtzehn - 18
neunzehn - 19
zwanzig - 20
einundzwanzig - 21
dreißig - 30
zweiunddreißig - 32
vierzig - 40
dreiundvierzig - 43
fünfzig - 50
vierundfünfzig - 54
sechzig - 60
fünfundsechzig - 65
siebzig - 70
sechsundsiebzig - 76
achtzig - 80
siebenundachtzig - 87
neunzig - 90
achtundneunzig - 98

(ein)hundert - 100
zweihundert(und)eins - 201
dreihundert(und)vierundfünfzig - 354

(ein)tausend - 1,000
neuntausend(und)dreiunddreißig - 9, 033

achthunderttausend - 800,000

eine Million - a million
fünf Millionen - 5 million [more than one million]
zwei Millionen dreihunderttausend - 2,300,000

eine Milliarde - one billion
neun Milliarden - 9 billion [more than one billion]

eine Billion - one trillion [yes, a trillion, not billion]
neun Billionen - nine trillion [more than one trillion]

die Ordinalzahlen - Ordinal number

erste - 1st
zweite - 2nd
dritte - 3rd
vierte - 4th
fünfte - 5th
sechste - 6th
siebte - 7th
achte - 8th
neunte - 9th
zehnte - 10th
elfte - 11th
zwölfte - 12th
dreizehnte- 13th
---
zwanzigste - 20th
hundertste - 100th


die Brüche - fractions

For die Brüche just add -stel after the numbers that end with -d, -g, and -t. All the others you just add -tel.

ein halb - 1/2
das Drittel* - 1/3
das Viertel - 1/4
das Dreiviertel - 3/4
dreiviertel (adjective) - 3/4 (3 quarters)
ein fünftel - 1/5
eineinhalb - 1 1/2
anderthalb - 1 1/2

plus - plus
minus - minus
mal - times
gibt, macht - equals
durch - divided by

die Breite - width
die Länge - length
die Höhe - height
die Tiefe - depth
der Meter - meter
der Kilometer - kilometer
der Zentimeter - centimeter
der Millimeter - millimeter

das Gramm - gram
das Milligram - milligram
das Kilo, Kilogram - kilogram
das Pfund - pound
die Tonne - ton

die Unze - ounce
das Gewicht - weight

die Dezimalzahlen - decimal
Komma - [used instead of "point"] example: 0.2 will be 0,2
die Potenzen - power (2 square, 3 to the 5th power ,etc)
die Quadratwurzel - square root

Verbs

zählen - to count
rechnen - to calculate