German Case Charts – Memory Game
Welcome to my German Case Chart Memory Game.
Here, you can practice German case tables in a way that’s kind of fun. Choose articles or adjective endings, then rebuild the chart by finding all the matching forms.
You don’t need to memorize case tables to speak German. But if you want or need to learn them, this game makes the process more active, and hopefully more bearable.
Viel Spaß!
Pick a target, then find all matching cards on the board.
How the game works
Part of what makes it confusing is that some forms get repeated multiple times in different functions.
Here’s the table for definite articles for instance.
As you can see, we have der in various different places and functions.
The game basically makes you rebuild the tables, but in a way that feels like you’re actually playing Memory.
Each cell is a card, and above the “board”, you see the “targets” and how many of each card are in there.
And your task is to basically pick a target and then turn over all matching cards (cells) in a row.
If you pick der , for example, and you find two but then you turn a den, you have to place them all face down again and start over, until the deck is completely unveiled.
The goal is to clear the table that’s on the board by uncovering all the forms. Above the table you see a list of all the elements that are in the board, together with a count (unless you hide it). Those are the targets.
Here’s the basic flow:
- Look at the target forms above the board
- Pick one form, like der, dem, or einen
- Flip cells and try to find all matching forms
- If you flip the wrong form, the cards turn back over
- Clear the whole board to finish the game
You can also have the computer pick a target for you randomly, or you can play the reverse where you have to select the right target for a highlighted cell of the case table.
You can select different tables to practice. At the moment I have added:
- definite articles
- indefinite articles
- weak adjective endings
- strong adjective endings
- mixed adjective endings
Let me know what else I should add.
Where the idea came from
The idea for this game comes from Deborah Cohen from Sprachwerk Berlin. She uses a handmade version of this game with her students.
This online version is my adaptation and extension of her idea, full credit for the original game concept goes to her.
She also runs a school with a pretty unique teaching approach, so if you’re in Berlin and are looking for taylored German classes, check her school out:
Sprachwerk Berlin – Bespoke German Lessons
German Case Table Tool – FAQ
Do I have to learn German case tables?
NO!
Case charts and tables are nice as a sort of quick lookup tool but when you actually speak, trying to pick the right ending by visualizing the chart you memorized is not a good approach for most of us.
If you WANT to learn them or have to learn them for school, then do it. Otherwise, I wouldn’t bother.
Do I need to know German cases already to play the game?
Yes and no. The game works best if you already have a basic idea of nominative, accusative, dative, and genitive, and now want to get more familiar with the actual forms.
But technically, you can also play it and learn the tables without knowing any German at all.
What happens when I flip the wrong card?
The cards you flipped for that target turn back over, and you try again. The goal is to find ALL matching cards in one clean run.
Is this useful if I hate case tables?
Yes, maybe especially then. You’re still working with the table, but in a more active and playful way than just staring at it.
Can non-members use the game?
Yes. Non-members can try the game with a daily practice limit. Members can use it without limits.
Will more charts be added?
Probably. This is the kind of tool that can easily grow over time, depending on what you find useful.
***
I really hope you enjoy the game. Please let me know and also let me know if you have ideas for how to extend or improve it!
Audio Speed
Dark Mode
Super cool way to pass lunch at my desk :)
Glad you enjoy it :)
Super Idee zum Lernen.
Freut mich, dass es dir gefaellt!
Das ist super!
Freut mich :)
really great tool thank you for building! very easy to use and intuitive
Das ist ausgezeichnet!
This German Case Chart The nemory was incomprehensable.
What do you mean? Do you mean the rules aren’t clear? Or were the modes confusing?
Quick question: why is the plural column blocked off for indefinite articles? I get that “ein” doesn’t work for plurals, but “kein” does.
Otherwise, I love the updates! It will be a great tool for class, too! Vielen Dank!
Someone else already told me about that but then I forgot to add it. Much needed reminder :)
I find language learning very difficult, but I love games and puzzles. This game is fun and I think it’s really going to help keep me motivated. Sudoku, Chess puzzles, and German Case Chart Memory Game to help start the day off right!
Glad you enjoy it.
I don’t think I’ve seen adjectives endings separated like that before… Weak, mixed, strong. Is it just the difference between an old man, the old man and the man who was old?
– The man who was old.
This use of adjective is called “predicative” (you don’t have to remember that) and you do NOT need to worry about adjective endings with this use.
– Der Mann ist ALT.
– Die Frau ist ALT.
– Die Hunde sind ALT.
Weak, strong and mixed refers to the preceding article of an “attributive” adjective… an adjective that is in front of a noun.
You can have three classes of determiners before it:
definite (the, this, that…)
indefinite and possessive (a, no, my, your…)
nothing
And the weak, strong, mixed refer to THIS. So an adjective is not weak in itself, it’s just used in a “weak” context.
It’s not like with verbs that are weak or strong by themselves.
– der kleine Mann
– die kleine Frau
– das kleine Kind
– dem kleinen Kind
– ein kleiner Mann
– eine kleine Frau
– ein kleines Kind
– einem kleinen Kind
– kleiner Mann
– kleine Frau
– kleines Kind
– kleinem Kind
The first one is “weak” because the adjective doesn’t do much in terms of marking the case or gender.
The second group is mixed because the adjective does more work, but not as much as if the article were missing completely.
The third group is strong because the adjective has to do all the case and gender marking alone.
Does that help?
I love this learning German platform. It’s amazing.
I’m sorry to even dare correct you, but your sentence;
“Today I show you…”
is grammatically wrong. Please don’t take offence. It should read;
“Today, I’ll be showing you..”. Or
“Today I’ll show you…” Or
“Today I’m going to show you…”
Simple present, “I show ..” is for what you do always.
Hope you don’t mind
Kam Newman
I don’t mind at all :). Corrections always welcome.
Now that you said it, it sounds strange even to me, but when typing, I sometimes don’t feel that because in German, present tense is totally natural for these contexts.
Not only did you make a ‘article table’ game, but you also used the terms ‘strong and weak’ for verbs.
You know… back in the day when I was a green A1 and I stumbled upon YDG, I remember you speaking your mind very freely and forthright about these topics. If I remember right (and I do), I think you said “NO GERMAN has EVER heard of weak and strong verbs…” And yet now, you offer them up to the masses. I think you are getting soft und schwach as you age :) Where is angry, angsty, Sturm und Drang Emanuel these days? I think we need to have some beers, binge a little “youTube-personality based German learning content” for a while, and we’ll finish off the night with a trip to Duolingo’s stock price ticker and talk about how much money they make.
By the way, I think the reformatting of YDG home page and the new blurb for new people is really good. I like how you explained what YDG is and how it works.
LOLOLOL, yeah, I’ve grown soft. The DaF-Industrial-Complex has got to me after all :).
I mean… I added Goethe CEFR badges to my dictionary.
I do think I’ll change the weak, strong, mixed pickers though and have them use these stupid terms only in parenthesis.
I still hate Duolingo though. They need to be disrupted so bad!!
Definitely concur re: Duo. By comparison, even Reddit’s an improvement!
Thought Rosetta was ok for a while. Tried learning a language I never studied such as Tagalog, and it didn’t work for me.
Bissell,
Perhaps off topic here, however when I first visited the US years ago while studying ESL there, I encountered ZERO rank-and-file Americans who knew off the bat either what a preposition, conjunction etc. was…or cared!
? Did I mention parts of speech? Not sure what you are asking/saying.
That said, you are right…and I was one of them who didn’t really care – until I started learning German. Then again, after watching many, many Easy German ‘man on the street’ interviews, the same is true for Germans and their own language as well. One knows what sounds and feels right due to a million time hearing it and saying it. The WHY doesn’t matter. This is why regional phrases develop / slang etc – people hear the ‘wrong/altered’ thing over and over and it becomes the right thing over time.
I was taught to memorize too. (I still have a very worn copy pasted to my computer). If a person knew of a show called Dragnet (SP?- I don’t really recall the show- just the classic theme show tune) we ‘sung’ the Dem-der-dem-den to it. It is all bloody hard to learn and apply in real time (ie when trying to express something) but this was a fun game and I learned.
But more importantly- Congrats on your upcoming fatherhood and baby that is coming! I hope mom and baby do very well during delivery and both are healthy afterwards.
60 years ago I memorized these tables using nom,gen,dat,acc in that order, which is the classical grammatical tradition. Oh well, can’t teach an old dog new tricks.
That’s also how native speakers learn them in school, or at least I did in the 90s, but I have never seen this classical order in any recent textbook. They all now put the tables into the order they introduce the cases in. Took me a while to accept that, too.
But old dogs don’t need to learn all the new tricks. They got a bag of old tricks that works well :)
I love this! The only problem for me using this with my students is that I’ve only ever seen charts in the order M-F-N-Pl. Maybe this is a U.S. thing. It would be confusing for my students to learn a new format.
You can switch that with a button above the board from m n f pl too m f n pl :)
Ooooooh, danke sehr!
I just had an instructor suggest when I have 5 minutes I should take a piece of paper and write out a table. This is way better than that.
For indefinite you could do a 4th column for kein – obviously no plural indefinite, but this works the same way.
Oh that’s a great idea, I’ll add that.
Great tool! and congratulations on becoming a dad. :)
Danke :)
Another idea for a variation is in addition to the 2 column orders you provide – you could have a 3rd choice – “Random”
Hmm, that’d be a nice puzzle, but for this particular option I’m not sure if there’d be any benefit in terms of actual learning. If you do well there you’d basically not need the table anymore so in that case, it’s much better practice to just do sentences liek in my case drill tool.
This is really meant as a means to help if you need to memorize the tables specifically, so mixing them up too much would kind of go against that a bit.
Then again, it’s not difficult to add it as an option, so I’m torn :). The tech person in me says yes, the teacher says no.
Super. I have an idea for a variation. Let us pick if we want to fill out the whole grid. – Or – if we want to complete just one (from the top boxes – i.e. der (4), das (2,) etc) . The first way is how it works now – but it does get a little progressively easier after each set because there are fewer to select from. By the time you get to the last one (which is probably the hardest because we have avoided it – there are only 2 choices left. The second way, you start each set with a full set to pick from and the game is over after you select those 2 (or 4) . Hope this is clear. Awesome job!!
Ah, this is great feedback. For me, all of it is equally easy so I don’t feel this, but you’re right of course. The last few clicks are just busy work.
What about a random target? Like… instead of you picking the target, the game does it for you, so there is no way for you to avoid it if you get a difficult one?
A very useful tool. I’d love to see it extended to some common conjugations, even if just for present and perfect.
I think those need a different kind of game. I definitely want to add practice for those too, but I need to think about what’s the most useful form to do it :)
Glückwunsch! Congratulations! Viel Spaß beim windeln. Hope all are healthy and well. Blessings.
Gratulieren zum Frohen Ereignis
Danke!
Gerne!