Hello everyone,
and welcome back to our
brain wrecking, cramp inducing, no mercy having German summer boot camp.
Yup, that’s a thing now :)!
Last week, we got sweaty over the question how to translate before and after and this week, we’ll take on one of everyone’s favorite grammar topics:
Cases
And we’ll do something a little bit unusual, something that is kind of rare to find but that I think might be really helpful… we’ll eliminate gender from the equation.
Cases are quite a big topic. There’s the different endings for different word groups, then the question of which case to use with verbs and which case to use with prepositions. And overall it’s way too much to digest at once, so it’s broken down into little chunks. Like… the section about Accusative case in a beginners book. Or a chart of the definite articles for all cases. Or a lecture about Two Way Prepositions and which case to use.
There are many ways, to break up the big topic cases into smaller chunks, but there is one thing that most textbooks and exercises you can find online have in common… they deal with all three genders at a time.
And I’m not so sure this is very helpful.
You see, the grammatical gender itself has NOTHING to do with cases in the sense that they don’t influence each other. They just both influence which entry of a table is correct.
But picking the right gender for a noun and the right case are two completely independent tasks. If you got the case right but you were wrong about the gender, your answer will be wrong and you’ll have this little moment of failure. And maybe you don’t even know whether the case or the gender was the problem.
And another thing is, that you can’t build up automatisms if you’re constantly gender hopping. Let me give you an example…
- I see a dog. It is running.
It translated to er, because Hund is masculine in German. For an English speaker it is already an effort not to say “es” here. By knowing the gender, by knowing that it’s NOT es, your free up brain capacity that can actually really notice this it and thus build awareness.
Not sure if that made sense. But either way… I want to try out a new kind of exercise and see how it works for you and how you like it.
The exercise
And I’ll give a warning right away…
!! This exercise is a challenge for B1 learners !!
You can of course try it as a beginner. In fact, you might learn a LOT. But it will be virtually impossible for you to get even close to 50% correct. And even for B1 learners, it is a challenge.
So here’s what we’ll do: I’ll give you a statement in English and you have to translate it, using the proper words in the proper case.
And you’ll need pretty much the entire case skill set… Here’s an example.
- “I see a dog. It is sitting on a table. Is it yours?”
“No, I don’t have a dog.” - “Ich sehe einen Hund. Er sitzt auf einem Tisch. Ist es deiner?”
“Nein, ich habe keinen Hund.”
Articles, pronouns, indefinite pronouns, possessives, negations, two way prepositions… it’s pretty much all there, except for adjective endings and noun endings.
But what you don’t need to worry about is the gender. Dog is masculine, table is masculine. All these nouns will be masculine. So you can forget about the other genders completely. Still, I know it’s quite a tough exercise.
But the goal isn’t to just fill in some gaps with the correct form from a table.
The goal is rather that you build up a feeling how a masculine entity “moves” through an everyday statement or dialogue. We’ll go over lots of really common situations, and you’ll see that there’s a rhythm to it. And even if you feel lost in the beginning, I’m pretty sure you’ll get better toward the end.
If you have to answer something and you just pick the right answer based on gut feeling… PERFECT!! That’s the goal. And if you get it wrong, that’s also great because then you can analyze why you made a mistake and that’ll (slowly) build gut feeling.
Now, of course translation is a super mega challenge, so if you feel like that’s too much for now, then just click on the “?” to get the German version with gaps to fill. NO SHAME IN THAT!!
The solution is in the audio and you can also show it by clicking the circle O.
And if you want, you can type your solution into the text field. It doesn’t check it but you can compare it with the correct answer.
Oh and one more thing… I have a few examples where I’m using the possessive her and hers. I didn’t notice it right away, but now I realized that this might be confusing, since I said everything is masculine. The thing that is hers is masculine, not her herself.
I thought about changing the examples, but then I left them in because I thought it’s good to have this contrast between sein- (his) to ihr- (her) in the exercise.
Just wanted to mention that :).
Oh and yet another thing…. ONLY the nouns that are bold are all masculine. The ones you have to do the case work with.If you do translation, you will have to deal with all genders. Forgot to mention that but some people pointed that out in the comments :).
So now, I’d say… viel Spaß!!
What? Oh… you want a table with all the options?
Well, nope… since we’re doing pronouns and articles and possessives and all that, it would be a bunch of tables. The idea is NOT that you use a table. Just try to do it from your head, and if you don’t know an option… write it down. You’ll need it again. I think that’s the better way to learn than just picking a table cell.
***
“No, I have never seen him.”
“Nein, ich habe ____ nie gesehen.”
“Nein, ich habe ihn nie gesehen.”
“Yeah, I found it really good.”
“Ja, ich fand ____ sehr gut.”
“Ja, ich fand ihn sehr gut.”
“Yeah, it was really really really really really really good.”
“Ja, ____ war wirklich wirklich wirklich wirklich wirklich wirklich gut.”
“Ja, er war wirklich wirklich wirklich wirklich wirklich wirklich gut.”
“No, I’ll meet with him this afternoon.”
“Nein, ich treffe mich mit ____ heute Nachmittag.”
“Nein, ich treffe mich mit ihm heute Nachmittag.”
“No, I don’t have one either.”
“Nein, ich habe auch ____.”
“Nein, ich habe auch keinen.”
“It’s not mine.”
“Das ist nicht ____ .“
“Das ist nicht meiner.“
“No, it‘s not.”
“Nein, ist ____ nicht.”
“Nein, ist er nicht.”
***
Yeay, you made it.
I’m super mega curious… how did you do? Was it difficult? Was it too difficult? Do you hate me now?
Seriously, do you like this kind of exercise and do you think it is helpful for getting a feeling for cases? Let me know all your feedback (good and bad) in the comments.
As I said, it’s an experiment :).
Either way, I hope you enjoyed it and learned something. Have a great week and till next time.
I don’t have idea if it is my computer or the cookies but I can’t stay logged in my session, Does anyone have the same problem? :(
You mean, you log in and then the next day you have to do it again? Or do you get logged out if you just navigate around the site?
Für Frage n. 20, deine Übersetzung ist “Habe ich dir schon von dem Wein erzählt, von dem man nicht betrunken wird?”. Ich habe “Habe ich dir schon vom Wein erzählt, von dem man nicht betrunken wird?” geschrieben. Die einzige Unterschied ist “von dem” vs. “vom”. Gibt es Unterschiede in Bedeutung (ich denke keine) oder Betonung (vielleicht), oder sind die zwei genau gleich?
“von dem” has more of a pointy vibe than “vom” and in this case, since I point to a very specific wine, it sounds better. I have written about that in an advent calendar post, but I can’t remember which one :)
Thank you for the explanation.
That was also my impression, that “von dem Wein” is a little bit more “that wine we were talking about” compared to “vom Wein”, but I wasn’t sure about it. Glad to hear my Sprachgefühl was spot on on this ;)
Regarding #11: Why is it “Ich muss in den Supermarkt?” to say to go to the supermarket? I know this lesson is about cases but prepositions are frustrating! My understanding is that to go to the train station, it’s “zum Bahnhof.” Why use “zu” for one and “in” for another?
The long and short of it is that “in” is used when the focus is on going inside a venue. That’s not necessarily the case for a Bahnhof which can be just a track with a bench.
English focuses on the act of shopping when it says “to the supermarket” while German focuses on the actual venue.
Im really confused about the dependent possessive pronouns and the independent possessive pronouns. Idea for a future article :)
Erm… I don’t know what you mean by that. Could you give me an example? (I ain’t much for jargon, you know :)
There is a mistake in 19 and I do hate you for it!! You promised all the changes would be bolded and “its” is in italics, so defo tripped me up! I enjoyed the excercise very much, thank you for the experiment.
Hate well deserved :D. Fixed it, thanks for the heads-up.
Ich war ungefähr 90% genau bezüglich der Fälle, aber die Wortstellung meiner Übersetzungen habe ich nicht so gut gemacht. Ich muß alle Artikel die diesen Begriff erklären sofort lesen.
Super, 90% is voll gut. Ich glaube, wenn du die Serie on “Word order” gelesen hast, dann wird das Thema auch klarer sein :)
Why is “grade” used in 8 and “gerade” used in 9? Thank you for the great lesson. I’m not very advanced but got at least 75% right, so it was a good way to start off a Saturday.
Good question! BUt there’s absolutely no reason. The two are the same in spoken German. I didn’t even notice I used them back to back like that :)
That was quite difficult! German is my second language (I learnt it from my mother growing up), but the cases are one thing I never fully got the hang of. As I’m in the UK, I get lazy with my German, so my case accuracy can sometimes be rather lousy, although I am fluent. Do you have any tips to improve this?
Oh, that’s a hard question to ask me. I’d say reading helps. REad a few books and read them out loud to yourself. That’ll definitely make a difference.
You can also color mark nouns in the book for the genders.
Or if you are a writing person, you can try to write a mini story just with feminine nouns and one with neuter nouns and so on.
I honestly didn’t have any trouble at all doing the exercise. The only one I did wrong was the latest since for some reason I assumed that von took accusative and not dative, don’t know how I could mess it up. I think it was very easy for me because of Russian being my native language. After talking in a language with 6 cases every day for my entire life 2 cases seem like a piece of cake, especially with no need to worry about gender. What was really difficult and what would have been the reason why I would have failed the exercise if it had all the genders was the translation. I guess mein Wortschwatz(and knowledge of the genders these words have) is zu klein. Although I think I’m an exception to the rule having no problem with the cases but knowing almost no words at all. I should practice my vocab more for sure!
Thanks you!
Yeah, you Russians really don’t seem to have such big issues with German :D. It’s not the first time I hear that.
But yeah, maybe the cases won’t get you, but vocab sure will. Germans uses a LOT of words in daily life. Maybe not more than Russian, but different ones :D.
By the way, have you noticed the similarities between Russian/Slavic prefixes and German ones?
Hi. For #17 can we also say:
Er ist nicht meine ?
No, “meine” is a feminine form. “er” works, too, though, if that’s what you’re asking.
Sorry, my mistake, I meant: could we say “Er ist nicht mein” ?
Nope, it’s “meiner”.
Could you explain why the correct answer is ‘meiner’ please? Thanks a lot!
Pronouns like “mine” in German have to carry case AND gender markers most of the time.
Here the article marks gender and case (somewhat)
Here, we have a possessive article and there is less marking. It could technically also be “neuter”.
Here, “meiner” is a possessive PRONOUN (as opposed to article … my vs mine) and this gets to carry markings again. “-er” for Nominative masculine, pretty much like “d+er”.
Hope that helps!
I find the exercise very clever. I did well, and I am a brazilian student (that knows English). Now I´m studying German and I´m using your articles and exercises to increase my studies. Thank you.
I found this really helpful.
Freut mich, zu hören. Danke :)
VERY USEFUL! First I tried to just tranlate it from the German sentence and then I listened to you say it correctly and then I tried to translate it correctly from what you said and then I looked at the correct answer and corrected my mistakes. But I got close!
Awesome :)! Glad to hear that you found so many ways to work with the material.
Super. Fantastisch! Nicht nur fuer dem Grammatik (richtig?) , sondern auch um mehr idiomatisch zu schreiben/denken lernen.
Freut mich zu hören :)
Die Uebung war sehr gut. Danke! Can you provide an explanation for the answers–especially er vs. es?
Nice idea! I’ll see if I can work that into exercises in the future.
For now, just let me know which questions you have a question about and what it is that you want to know and I’ll answer it here.
(but please, give me the question number for reference :)
Can anyone help me to understand :-
1. Which of the following are good German, and which are bad German
2. Why do the sentences switch between “über der Stadt” (dative) and “über die Stadt (accusative) ?
456/5000
Flugzeuge fliegen über die Stadt
Die Flugzeuge fliegen über die Stadt
Über der Stadt fliegen Flugzeuge
Über der Stadt fliegen die Flugzeuge
Flugzeuge flogen über die Stadt
Die Flugzeuge flogen über die Stadt
Flugzeuge sind über die Stadt geflogen
Die Flugzeuge sind über die Stadt geflogen
Über die Stadt sind Flugzeuge geflogen
Über die Stadt sind die Flugzeuge geflogen
Flugzeuge werden über die Stadt fliegen
Die Flugzeuge werden über die Stadt fliegen
Über der Stadt werden Flugzeuge fliegen
Über der Stadt werden die Flugzeuge fliegen
All sentences are good German.
Die Flugzeuge talks about a bunch of clearly definited airplanes while just Flugzeuge refers to an unknown number of planes.
It’s the same in English:
– The planes are flying above the city.
– Planes are flying above the city.
As for “über die” vs “über der”, I answered that in the other comment.
Did you come up with all these on your own :)
I came up with the English alternatives entirely on my own, after observing one of the sentences in both English and German in a text-book … I then used my own knowledge and checked it with a machine translator, which produced “conflicting” definite article cases !! Knowing that I should never trust machines I decided to trust Emanuel !!! I remain a little confused and my brain is now flying round in circles ;(
So I will try to produce some clearer questions about location and why some of the planes are flying round in circles but not others !! Hoping that I am not flying into thick fog here !! As an experienced pilot I think you should take over the controls while I have a sleep as I am still a bit confused :-)
Ich möchte keine Bruchlandung haben, wenn ich an Dativ und Akkusativ denke.
Can anyone please help me to understand the different definite articles for the city please :-
Die Flugzeuge fliegen über die Stadt
Über der Stadt fliegen Flugzeuge
That’s a classic case of Two-Way-Prepositions.
The short story is that “über die” marks “above the city” as the destination of the planes. They’re above the forest and they’re flying above the city.
“über der Stadt” marks “above the city” as a fixed location, so they’re flying in circles there.
For more details, you can check out this article :)
https://yourdailygerman.com/two-way-prepositions-explained/
Ich muss in den Supermarkt. Ich hoffe er ist noch offen.
Why is it “er ist noch” and Not “ihn ist noch?
would it be wrong to put “gehen” after Supermarkt?
The supermarket is open, it is the subject of that part of the statement, so it’s in nominative.
“gehen” is fine, but it’s not very idiomatic in everyday speech.
Hope that helps :)
I liked this exercise very much and found it to be very useful, reinforcing and helping me with my efforts in this regard. I would love to see more like this. Got about 85% correct. One question: could “I must to go to the Supermarket” also be “Ich muss zum Supermarkt.” Thanks very much!
Sorry for letting you wait for so long :).
Yes, “zum Supermarkt” is also perfectly fine.
I did good (but I wouldn’t like to brag =)). But mainly, I like the idea. I think it`s really enlightening not having to think about other genders. Thanks!
Yeay, freut mich :)!! Danke.