Hello everyone,
at least if you live in the northern hemisphere, you might look out the window into the gray November weather and reminisce about summer. The long days, the balmy warmth, the beers, the flirts and of course the German is Easy Summer Bootcamp and its brain wreckingly hard exercises. Those were the days, right.
Well, I have good news because today, we’ll kind of do a German Summer Camp reunion. Hooray!!
If you were there, you’ll remember that we tried out a new type of exercise for practicing cases. One where we focused on one gender at a time to take that stuff out of the equation.
In summer, we did one for feminine and for masculine. Today, we’ll do an exercise for
Cases for Neuter
Here’s a quick overview of how it works…
The basic idea is that worrying about gender takes away a lot of focus and fun from exercises about cases. So all the nouns and pronouns in question today will be neuter. You don’t have to think about that anymore, and so you can focus on the case words themselves and get a better feel for them.
There are two options for you:
The first one is translation. The sentences are in English and you can just translate them to German. The words that are relevant for this exercise are marked in bold, so those are the ones that are gonna be neuter, but of course, if you translate you’ll deal with other genders, as well. You can type your solution into the textfield if you want to compare it, but it’s not auto checking what you enter.
Keep in mind that just because your translation is different to mine, that doesn’t mean it’s wrong. If you’re unsure, just ask in the comments. What should be the focus here is that you get the case words right that are in bold.
Now, translating things is quite hard, actually, and it’s more than just practicing cases. So if you want to focus on that, you can show the German version with gaps by clicking the little “?” sign. Then, you just have to find the right word. Note that sometimes you’ll have to combine a preposition with an article. So “in dem” may become “im“.
Which brings me to an important point. Case exercises often focus on one aspect of the language.. like definite articles, or possessive pronouns or personal pronouns or cases and prepositions.
We will combine all of those, so on paper, you need quite a bit of theory. But I think in practice it’s actually not that bad and it might even be helpful to see an entity “move” through different states in a sentence. The sentences are all pretty common things (the phrasing at least) and I think it’s a good way to build some sprachgefühl.
So yeah… if you want to know what level, I’d say it’s B1, but feel free to try it even as an A2 student.
What else… ah yeah, to see the solutions, just click the little circle and they’ll show up. And you can also listen to it in the audio.
Oh and one last thing… don’t expect yourself to get everything right. I put some tricky ones in there and the idea is that you learn something new also.
Cool, I think you know all you need to know… so… let’s go.
Viel Spaß :)!!
The Exercise
***
“On the contrary, it is a big problem. The beer isn’t for free.”
“Doch, das ist ____ großes Problem. ____ Bier ist nicht umsonst.”
“Doch, das ist ein großes Problem. Das Bier ist nicht umsonst.”
“Don’t ask. That was a disaster.”
“Frag nicht. Das war ____ Desaster.”
“Frag nicht. Das war ein Desaster.”
“Oh, but yes. There’s one behind the tree.”
“Doch, da hinter dem Baum ist ____.”
“Doch, da hinter dem Baum ist eins.”
“Mine is good.”
“____ ist gut.”
“Meins ist gut.”
“I don’t have one.”
“Ich habe ____.”
“Ich habe keins.“
“No, I don’t have one, sorry.”
“Nein, sorry, ich hab’ ____.“
“Nein, sorry, ich hab’ keins.“
“No, the third time.”
“Nein, _____ dritte Mal.”
“Nein, das dritte Mal.”
***
And, how was it? Was it difficult? How many did you get wrong? Was there anything you had trouble with?
Let me know all your feedback and of course also all your questions in the comments below.
I hope you liked this little Summer Camp Reunion, have a great week and bis zum nächsten Mal : )!
Hello,
Let’s then start with a typo-finding bootcamp:
“we’ll do an exerice for” (exercise)
“overview over” is overkill; overview of is better!
“personal pronouns it or cases and prepositions” (one “it” too many)
OMG, I found a typo in the German part – “Thomas sitzt im Café und trink ein Bier” (trinkt) lol
Question 23 – the answer shows when you click the question mark…
I didn’t attempt the translations (I’m working at mo and will do it when I have a bit more time), but I got all case words right :)))))) However, there’s a construction I don’t understand, which is “denn ihm ist langweilig”. I managed to guess the dative was the right answer, what I don’t understand is why it is not “es ist ihm langweilig”. Also, could you say “es ist gelangweilt” instead?
And, on a completely unrelated topic, what’s a Zwiebelmettbrot? One of our frinds on the blog mentioned eating one at the Berlin Hbf and how nice it is… As I’m also going to be there early next month I thought I’d try it. However, I searched online and apparently it involves raw pork meat… Is that true? and if so, is it safe? and is it good?
Bis bald
Ha… “overview over” does sound a little strange, but in German it’s how it’d be done… “Übersicht über” :).
About your question:
Yes, you could say “es ist gelangweilt”. That’s perfectly fine. I just feel like using the phrasing with “langweilig” and Dative is more common, probably because it rolls of the tongue better.
Now, why is it not “es ist ihm langweilig”?
You could write it that way, but the “es” doesn’t really serve a purpose here.
“Ihm ist langweilig” is just shorter so that’s what people usually say. The “es” disappears as soon as it’s not in position one because it’s really doesn’t carry any info.
About Zwiebelmett:
Yes, it’s raw porc meat with onions and spices. In Berlin, it’s also called Hackepeter, but Zwiebelmett is the general term. I know it sounds gross to many foreigners but it’s actually quite tasty. You eat it with salt, pepper and a pickled cucumber on a bun.
I for one am not a fan of porc meat but I can’t help but eat a Mettbrötchen from time to time.
And yes, it’s save. Regulation says that you’re only allowed to sell it on the day it was made, and it’s nothing to be kept in the fridge because the bad things will happen but you never hear about a Mett-scandal whereas you do hear about other meat scandals regularly.
Do you know beef tartar? It’s basically the same, just with porc.
I actually HATE beef tartar by the way. To me, that one is gross.
Makes no sense, I know. But yeah… I can relate :D
Oh and then there’s the Mettigel… you just have to see this :D
Thema : “Hacky Sack”
Vocab:
die Pein – agony, torment, suffering
quietschen – to squeal
“Eier” – die Hoden, testicles
das Ferkel- piglet
das Ringelschwänzel- curly little tail
der Po – cute fanny
mitsamt – with (in the sense of including)
Der Fleischwolf – meatgrinder
die Dreharbeit — the act of cranking (an old hand crank camera) – mostly used as term for filming a movie from ”drehen”
der Hickhack – squabble
der Borg -barrow – neutered male pig
___________________________________________________________________
Es ist wie es ist! War aber doch anderes!
Aber sich weiter zeugen kann es ,
es nicht.
Der ganze deutsche Hickhack ist hier hell erleuchtet
im grellen Tageslicht!
——————————————————————————————————————————
quiet-schen hat mit ”quiet” gar nichts zu tun!
Ohne Betäubung mit quietschendem Geschrei,
aber mit großer Eile,
vierliert armes Schweinchen
zack, zack! drei unnötige Teile,
mitsamt Säck’l dabei!
Beim Ferkel Po
eins zwo drei.
sind jetzt “Eier” und Ringelshwänzel davon befreit!
Ab sofort in den Fleischwolf;
die Dinger hinein-
Ratz Fatz tut der Wolf seine blutige “Dreharbeit”!
Mit Peffer und Salz
Zwiebel und Schmalz,
alles ist,
ganz frisch gemischt.
Sagt lovely Maria dem Thomas,
”Liebling – jetzt wird gleich fertig für Dich,
eine Schale Zwiebelmett Brotaufstrich”.
Der Thomas beißt hungrig die Deliktess ‘
Und denkt dabei als er tierisch mit Gürkel
und Brot es alles freßt,
Armes Schweinchen
aus ihm heute geworden
ist ”buchstäblich”,
EIN ES!
Abgehackt
wird ”es” als DER Borg unbemannt
& umbenannt
sogar ”unten ohne”
als maskulin anerkannt!
22.11.19 – Abgaß
Übung 9:
Das Mädchen weint. Die Mutter kauft ihm ein Eis, um IHR zu trösten . Warum um ES zu trösten ?
Voraus danke.
Weil es “das Mädchen” ist. Man könnte auch “sie” sagen, aber technisch gesehen ist “es” richtig. Oh, und es ist Akkusativ.
Sentence 13.
Is there a difference between “gucken“ and “zugucken”?
I have used ”anschauen”, is it also ok?
And also is it ok dem schlafenden Eichhörnchen instead of beim Schlafen.
Sentence 18/19.
Can “heute früh” mean also early in the day? for example, I went to work early today, ich bin heute früh in die Arbeit gegangen.
(I hope it makes sense)
Thanks. ^_^
13)
Yes, “gucken” alone wouldn’t be idiomatic. It’s just the act of you looking in some direction. But usually you need to specify that direction in some way, either with a prefix or with a preposition.
“zugucken” expresses that you’re watching over an extended period of time.
You could say “dem schlafenden Eichhörnchen”, it’s fine. The only thing that’s a bit odd is that you’re then not really saying what your watching. I mean… it’s implied that you’re watching it sleep, but usually you “zugucken” someone as they do something.
18/19)
Absolutely, “heute früh” does also mean “this morning”. I use that quite frequently actually. In the example in the exercise, the context makes it clear.
Hope that helps!
Thanks! Lots of fun.
You lost me on this one:
Das Einhorn guckt dem Eichhörnchen beim Schlafen zu, denn ihm ist langweilig.
I would think that it would be:
Das Einhorn guckt das (accusitive) Eichhoernchen beim Schlafen zu, denn es (referring back to the nominative subject of the main clause) ist langweilig.
Clarify for me?
Thanks!
No problem, here you go :):
“zugucken” always goes with a Dative for the person or thing being watched.
– Ich gucke dir/dem Baum zu.
So it’s different to “angucken”.
You can just use the fact that “zu” as a preposition needs Dative as a mnemonic.
As for the second part… being bored is like being cold or hot one of those phrasing where you use Dative.
– Mir/dir/ihm… ist kalt/warm/langweilig.
Literally, that means “to me/you/him… [it] is boring”
If you want to use “es” you’d need to use “gelangweilt” which literally means “bored”.
– Ihm ist langweilig.
– Es ist gelangweilt.
Those two both mean “it is bored.”
Let me know if that helps :)
Yes! Thank you! Ganz klar!
Lisa
Too many embarrassing mistakes but fun and informative as always. I consider myself A2 but I made a right hash of this one!
Well, great thing you tried :)!! Were you at least able to spot some reoccuring themes with the mistakes?
Also, I hope you didn’t try to translate. That is WAY to difficult for an A2 learner, even though the phrases are short.
Number 23… “Ist das dein erstes Mal in Berlin?”
“Nein, das dritte Mal.” Could I say “Ist das dein erstes Mal in Berlin?”
“Nein, das Dritte.” (wie “das Gleiche”)
Or would it be “das Drittes”? Neither?
Number 24… Can we use genitive, and if so, would this be right?… “Auf dem Balkon ist ein Eichhörnchen. Maria gibt ihm ein Stück ihren Walnusbrötchens.”
Somehow I guessed it by ear, but why ist it “in dem” for number 2 (Das Einhorn, das in dem alten Haus wohnt, ist auch alt.) but “im” for number 3 (Thomas sitzt im Café und trinkt ein Bier.)? Is it a rule that if there’s an adjective, you don’t contract in with dem?
Is there any flexibility for the placement of the “auch” in “Maria macht ihr Bier auch mit ihrem Handy auf.”?
Finally, can we use “es” instead of “das” in “das ist ein großes Problem.” or am I translating too automatically from the English “it”? Also, does the das have anything to do with the neuter case, i.e. would it be “Das ist ein großer Löffel” or “Der ist ein großer Löffel”? (Err, I think Löffel is masculine, hope I’m right)
Thanks for the great exercise — I made a lot of mistakes and learned a lot!!
Cat
great questions!
23) Yes, “das Dritte.” (without “Mal”) is perfectly fine!
24) Yes, that’s more eloquent even (though not how most people would say it daily life)
2) I expected this question and I think I’ll do a post on that in my upcoming advent calendar
Verb placement with “auch”).
Not really. The only alternative is moving “auch” to the front. Then you’re basically “auching” Maria, while now you’re “auching the action. But one of those two needs to be “auched”, so “auch” has to be in front of it.
“es” instead of “das” in the beginning of a sentence.
That question actually came up several times in the other episodes of this exercise – whether it shouldn’t be “er” or “sie”, I mean.
Technically, you can say “es” here, but it’s not really tightly connected to what it is a reference for.
– “Es ist kein Problem, dass ich kein Geld habe.”
This “es” is not a reference, but just a filler, because it disappears if we change the sentence.
– “Dass ich kein Geld habe, ist kein Problem.”
But these “es” first statements are kind of common, and so using “es” in our case is a bit unclear. The listener doesn’t know immediately if “es” is this weird filler, or if it is a reference. “das” is more pointy and clear in that sense.
And the same goes for the second part.
“Doch, es ist ein Problem.”_
“das” has more pointing energy. It points to “the matter discussed” and that’s more idiomatic than using the gender-specific pronoun.
Hope that helps :)
Thanks a lot for this exercise, I have many mistakes and many questions:
what’s the difference between gucken und betrachetn, besichtigen?
eins und eines, kein und keines?
where ist the place of nicht in the sentence?
why in the 9th sentence we must use um …zu und not indem?
and many other things.
But I understand that i have al lot forgotten.
Again thanks a lot for this very good lessons that might not be very easy to do.
“gucken” is just about the act of “looking” in a direction. “betrachten” is “looking at something for a while”, a bit like you’d do with a painting. “besichtigen” implies that you’re actually visiting a location. So you wouldn’t “besichtigen” a painting.
“eins” and “keins” are the idiomatic choices for the neuter pronoun.
Where’s the placement of “nicht” in the sentence?
I have articles about that. That’s too general a question for a comment.
About number 9)… counterquestion: why would you use “indem”. “indem” means “by means of”. That concept is not part of the English sentence as I phrased it. So where would you use it?
I love your lessons. Keep it up! Thank you.
Bitte mir solch Quatsch nicht zuschicken. Danke.
Ich habe geguckt, und ich habe deine E-Mail Addresse garnicht. Hast du es über Facebook oder Google bekommen?
I need to expend my vocab more before doing thise excersie. That being said, there is sth more important for you to do than Neuter cases and word of the week. And its “Thomas andt Maria” the love story. You dropping hints here and there, but we need the full story ;)
Ps: this is a joke
But you get the full story. If you read all articles on the site you’re completely up to date. It’s like a TV-series kind of drama that goes on forever.
As for the exercise… I think you should first try just fill in the blanks.
Super Ubung!
7) Warum “eins” – mit dem s
11) Echt? Bitte erklären wie man das tun kann. Offensichtlich bin ich keine deutsche
7) That’s the pronoun. In German, pronouns get to carry some gender and case info that would otherwise be part of the adjective.
– Da ist ein großes Einhorn.
– Da ist ein Großes.
– Da ist eins.
And here for masculine:
– Da ist ein großer Kaffee.
– Da ist ein Großer.
– Da ist einer.
11) You use your phone as a lever, just like you’d do with a lighter. It worked perfectly
fine with old Nokias but with Smart phones you’ll probably damage your screen or case. You can do it, but you’ll pay a price :D. Maria and Thomas just don’t care, because they’re renegade like that.
The girl is crying. The mother buys her an ice cream to console her.
Die Mutter kauft IHM ein Eis, um es zu trösten.
Your pronouns are masculine when girl is the subject. IHM is masculine/dative for him, but the anaphor should be IHR/dative for THE GIRL. And ES is not the accusative of Her-‘ in order to console HER’. It should be the accusative ‘um SIE zu trösten’. What am I missing? Why are you using masculine pronouns?
In German, pronouns go by grammatical gender, not actual gender. The girl is a grammatical neuter – das Mädchen.
“ihm” is not only masculine Dative but also neuter Dative.
That should clear it up.
Counter example… we’ll take a table. Table is a thing, so in English you refer to it with “it”. IN German, it’s masculine so you refer to it like you’d refer to a man.
– Der Tisch ist grün. Ich sehe ihn.
“es” would sound super wrong here.
Hope that helps.
Gute Übung und viel spass. Mehr bitte :-)!
Danke :).
Guck mal bei “Work OUt”, falls du die Übungen vom Summer Camp noch nicht gemacht hast.
Ack! I did somwhat decently with translating, although I found it tiring. However I made a mess of a lot of the exercise. the further I went the more I messed up things I had gotten correct earlier in the exercise. I need to go back and review some actual grammar.
Hmmm, sounds like you were going by gut feeling in the beginning and then started second guessing yourself, which led to you making more mistakes :). Do you understand the mistakes you made or is it completely unclear?
Thanks for a great workout! Am doing better on the translations, but although I got the gender and the cases correct – I screwed up the translation on 13 – the “beim Schlafen” threw me.
24 was also a tricky translation. Did a wonky “Auf dem Balkon gibt es ein Einhörnchen, Maria gibt ihm ein Stück ihres Walnussbrötchens.” OK, I take total responsibility for the stupid “Auf dem Balkong gibt es ein Einhörnchen2 – duh – of course it’s “Auf dem Balkong ist ein Einhörnchen”. The genitive “ihres Walnussbrötchens” can only be blamed on Uni – it’s all their fault. No vonnative at Uni, not instead of genitive, anyway.
But still. Gotta work on that whole “Beim Verben” thing – just not there yet.
Give the lovely assistent my regards for another great Workout!
Actually, many learners use Genitive a bit more often then Germans do in daily speech.
I have heard quite a few times that learners “like” the Genitive for some reason :).
The mistake with “auf dem Balkon gibt es” makes perfect sense to make :).
What’s up with “beim Essen” though? Why was that such a surprise?
Also… I’m doing these exercises myself. My assistant is on coffee duty for the time being :D
I think for English speakers, it’s easy to internalize the sense that Genitive is the “of” case (which is true enough), and it’s easy to feel that “von” means “from” more than “of.” That’s probably why I tend to overuse it – at least AE speakers use “of” a LOT. Of course, in other inflected languages, Genitive is actually a normal, functional, everyday case… ;)
Noch ein Kommentar auf dem “Das Mädchen – > ihm, es” Sache…
Ich habe das Beispiel meiner Frau vorgelesen, und ihr Reaktion war zu fragen ob ich der Fehler finden muss, oder was. Ich habe ihr erzählt, dass der Satz schon richtig ist. Sie seufzt, sagt quasi ja ok, “es und ihm” geht, gramatischeweise und so, aber “sie und ihr” wäre auch normal, grumble grumble. Darf ich dann mitnehmen, dass solche Formulierungen in beide Richtungen gesagt werden können? Und ich vermute, dass solche Sätze mit der gramatische geschlecht schreiben müssen. Hab ich recht?
Als immer, danke!
In genau diesem Fall kannst du tatsächlich auch zu “sie” wechseln, das ist so ein bisschen eine Ausnahme von der Regel.
Aber du kannst bei “das Kind” zum Beispiel nicht einfach später zu “ihr” wechseln, auch wenn es ein Mädchen ist.
Ja, das Beispiel klingt für mich auch nicht super schön, aber für diese Übung hier, fand ich diesesn Fall wichtig.
Im Zweifel bleib lieber beim grammatischen Geschlecht :).
Liebe Grüße!!
Harder than it should have been for all my years (off and on) of study. I guess for one thing I’ve forgotten some word order rules. Do you have any lessons on that?
Yes, I do. You can find them in the online course section. Just scroll down to the topics there, you’ll see it.
How’d you do on the cases though?
2. Das Einhorn, das in dem alten Haus wohnt, ist auch alt.
3. Thomas sitzt im Café und trinkt ein Bier.
Are the following wrong?
2. Das Einhorn, das im alten Haus wohnt, ist auch alt.
3. Thomas sitzt in dem Café und trinkt ein Bier.
Great question!! I have a post in my upcoming Advent Calendar about that, so I’m not going to spoil it here. Stay tuned :)!!
Question 1:
4. Thomas geht einmal pro Woche ins Fitness Studio. I wrote “Thomas geht ins Fitness Studio einmal pro Woche. ” I know the TeKaMoLo rule but is it wrong to say what I said?
Question 2: Can I call “a date” eine Verabredung?
As always, great exercise! Thoroughly enjoyed it! :)
Ok seriously, is there a good way to learn the trennbare Verben, like a really efficient way, explaining what each prefix does to the meaning of the verb? :P angucken, zugucken etc. I would love that!
Danke vorab! :)
1)
It’s not really wrong, but there’s a lot of tension in this sentence and it only makes sense of you have a very good reason to change the order.
It#s actually hard for me to come up with one, to be honest, but it might exist.
That said, some people might say this in spoken German, simply because they speak faster than they think.
Have you read my series on Word Order? If not, check it out. I have a different approach than TeKaMoLo, so maybe it helps get a better understanding of what’s going on.
2) That’s hard to answer. “Date” usually does imply this classical, romantic date, which a “Verabredung” can be anything. Generally, if it really is a “Date” then I’d say Date, just to make it clear.
Hope that helps.