Recently I received an interesting question by Ollie Lovell from Breakthru Languages about how to learn German grammar on your own. Since this is a probably a question many of you have, I wanted to talk a bit about this issue today. If you’re already participating in a structured course or working with a tutor, you’ll naturally be exposed…
Articles by André Klein
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German
9 Fun Facts About The German Alphabet
Have you ever wondered what the differences are between the German and the English alphabet, why some German words seem to go on forever and what these strange dots over the vowels mean? Here are nine quirky factoids: 1. The German Alphabet has 4 extra letters The German alphabet uses the same 26 letters like…
German
4 Ways To Practice Speaking German Online (For Free)
Whenever I talk to German learners I never miss out on the opportunity to ask about the biggest challenges when learning German, and dreimal darfst du raten* what are the most commons answers: Articles (der/die/das) Declension (Akkusativ/Genitiv/Dativ, etc.) Other grammar stuff (Passiv/Aktiv, Konjunktiv, etc.) So, yeah. That’s not too surprising. German grammar is tricky. (Here…
German
Advance Your German With These 11 Award-Winning Screenplays
Why learn German with screenplays? Hannah Arendt (2012) Systemsprenger (2019) – “System Crasher” Sophie Scholl – Die letzten Tage (2005) – “Sophie Scholl – The Final Days” Kirschblüten – Hanami (2008) – “Cherry Blossoms” Almanya – Willkommen in Deutschland -“Almanya: Welcome to Germany” Weissensee (2010-2018) Further Resources Reading German novels and short stories is a…
German
Read Free Stage Plays & Sketches To Improve Your German Conversation Skills
After having released my first book of easy German dialogues last year, I’ve been thinking a lot about the immediacy of the spoken word, and how this more direct way of storytelling can be helpful for language learners. There’s something about the back-and-forth of two (or more) people speaking that just pulls you right into the natural…
German
4 Sites To Help You Improve Your German Pronunciation Which Aren’t Google Translate
What do you do when you don’t know how to pronounce a German word? It’s a simple question, right? But there are many answers! Today I’d like to share some resources that will help you find the right pronunciation of any German word out there within just a few seconds, no matter how offbeat or…
Meet detectives Baumgartner & Momsen and learn German effortlessly with special emphasis on idioms and natural language crammed with humor and suspense.
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From “Sneeze Shame” to “Hygiene Knights”: 10 Strange New German Words Created By The Pandemic
After more than one year in the grip of a global pandemic, our daily lives have changed extensively. The way we work, travel, socialize and decompress have all undergone strange transformations. And these changes have begun to be reflected in the way we use language. The Leibniz Institute for the German Language, an organisation for documenting…
Books
7 Literary Classics In Simplified German
How do you make the leap from studying German textbooks, flipping flashcards and poring over worksheets to reading (and enjoying) classic literature? Even native speakers who make their first acquaintance with the classics in high school often find themselves bewildered by archaic vocabulary and convoluted nested sentences. Whenever the literary German dives into a sentence,…
Language Learning
Learning German with Stories: The Short & Funny Tales Of The Schildbürger
Let’s escape our current timeline for a bit, shall we? Let’s travel back in time to the Middle Ages, to the fabulous city of Schilda somewhere in the middle of Germany. Its inhabitants were called “Schildbürger”, i.e. the citizens of Schilda. They were strange people. Everything they did, they did wrong. And everything they were…
German
The German Prefix “be-” Explained
Once you’ve started learning a few German verbs, you’ll notice that there are a number of awkwardly similar verbs which have a slightly similar yet sufficiently different meaning. I’m talking about those pesky German verb prefixes which sometimes are just two or three letters long but completely change the meaning of the verb. Let’s take…
German
“I Can’t Get No …”: N-Declension In German
Welcome back to another instalment of our German grammar series in which I answer some of the questions that have popped up on the newsletter. Today’s question is by Douglas: My question: why do some German nouns add a final ‘n’ in the acc. sing., e.g. ‘meinen Namen’ , einen Geldautomaten, which, of course has…
