German grammar
104 explanations, ordered the way the course teaches them. Free to read, no account.
A1Beginner19 topics
- Present tense: regular conjugationHow to conjugate regular German verbs in the present tensefree conjugation drill
- Present tense: sein, haben, werden, wissen and stem-changing verbsIrregular and stem-changing verbs in the present tensefree conjugation drill
- Noun gender (der/das/die)Memorising and applying the three grammatical genders of German nouns
- Noun pluralsHow German nouns form their plural
- Definite, indefinite and negative articles — nominativeChoosing der/das/die, ein/ein/eine and kein/kein/keine for the subject of a sentence
- Accusative case for direct objectsHow to mark the thing a verb acts on
- Dative case: forms and core usesdem, der, einem — the case for locations and dative verbs
- Personal pronounsnominative, accusative, dative
- Possessive articlesmein, dein, sein, ihr and the rest — choosing the right form
- W-questions, yes/no questions and dochAsking questions in German and answering negative ones with doch
- V2 word order in main clausesThe finite verb always occupies the second position in a German main clause.
- Negation: nicht vs kein and the position of nichtHow to say "not" and "no" in German, and where to place the negative word
- Zero article: professions, nationalities and indefinite pluralsWhen German uses no article at all
- Modal verbs in the present + verb bracketkönnen, wollen, müssen, dürfen, sollen, mögen — conjugation and word orderfree conjugation drill
- Imperative (Sie, du, ihr)Giving commands and making suggestions in German
- Temporal prepositionsExpressing time with am, um, im, von … bis, ab, vor, nach, in, für, and bare accusative phrases
- es gibt + accusativeExpressing existence and availability in German
- Präteritum of sein and habenwar, hatte — the simple past of "to be" and "to have"free conjugation drill
- Numbers, ordinals and datesCardinals, ordinals, years and dates in German
A2Elementary31 topics
- Perfekt with habenForming the present perfect with haben + past participle
- Perfekt with seinUsing sein + past participle for motion, change of state, and key exceptions
- Past participle formationHow to build the Partizip II for weak, strong, separable, inseparable, and -ieren verbs
- Akkusativ prepositionsdurch, für, gegen, ohne, um, bis — prepositions that always take the accusative
- Dativ prepositionsPrepositions that always trigger dative case: aus, bei, mit, nach, seit, von, zu, gegenüber
- Separable-prefix verbsDetaching the prefix and placing it at the end of the main clause
- Two-way prepositions: location vs directionHow the same preposition takes accusative or dative depending on whether you mean where something is or where it is going
- Adjective declension after ein/kein/possessivesMixed declension: how adjectives change form after ein-wordsfree conjugation drill
- Adjective declension after der/das/dieWeak adjective endings after the definite articlefree conjugation drill
- Adjective declension without an articleStrong endings: the adjective carries the case signal itselffree conjugation drill
- Cause and consequence: weil vs deshalb (and denn)Three ways to link a reason and a result — each with its own word order
- dass-clausesComplement clauses with dass after verbs of saying, thinking, and feeling
- wenn vs alsTwo German words for "when" — and why they are never interchangeable
- Indirect questions (ob, W-words)Embedding yes/no and information questions inside a main clause
- Relative clauses: nominative and accusativeUsing der, das, die to add information about a noun
- Reflexive verbsVerbs that act on the subject itself — and how to express "each other"
- Modal verbs in the Präteritumkonnte, musste, durfte, wollte, sollte, mochtefree conjugation drill
- Konjunktiv II for wishes and polite requestsUsing würde, könnte, sollte and hätte (gern) to soften requests, wishes and advice
- Present passivewerden + past participle
- Verbs with fixed prepositions + wo(r)-/da(r)-formsHow German verbs govern a fixed preposition, and how to ask about or refer back to things using wo(r)- and da(r)-compounds
- Comparative and superlativeComparing people and things in German using -er, am -sten, and irregular forms
- aber vs. sondernTwo words for "but" — knowing which to use
- Basic indefinite pronounsman, jemand, etwas, nichts, alles and more
- lassen + infinitivehaving something done, letting someone do something, and making suggestions
- Saying "to": nach, zu, in, an, aufChoosing the right preposition when expressing a destination in German
- seit + present tenseExpressing ongoing situations that started in the past
- wissen vs kennen (vs können)Three German verbs that all translate as "to know" — but each covers a different kind of knowing.
- Demonstratives and question articlesdieser, welcher, was für ein
- Order of dative and accusative objectsHow to sequence two objects after verbs like geben, zeigen, and schenken
- Measure and quantity expressionsHow German counts and measures things: Glas, Kilo, halb, je, and more
- Quantifiers: jeder, alle, viel(e), ein paar, ander-How to express every, all, many, a few, and other in German
B1Intermediate27 topics
- Präteritum (full paradigm)The simple past tense: weak, strong, and mixed verbsfree conjugation drill
- Relative clauses: dative, genitive and with prepositionsUsing dem/der/denen, dessen/deren, and preposition + pronoun in relative clauses
- dass-clauses with the PerfektEmbedding a completed action inside a subordinate clause
- Placement verbs: stellen/stehen, legen/liegen, hängenTransitive placement vs. stative position — accusative vs. dative with two-way prepositions
- Passive: past tenses and with modalsPräteritum, Perfekt with worden, and modal constructions
- Subordinating conjunctions and verb-final orderobwohl, da, während, bevor, falls, sobald, solange, seitdem, bis — and why the verb moves to the end
- Plusquamperfekt and nachdemExpressing past-before-past and sequencing events with nachdem
- Futur ITalking about the future: predictions, promises, and assumptions
- Konjunktiv II pasthätte/wäre + past participle for regrets, missed opportunities, and unreal past conditions
- Infinitive with zuForming and using zu-infinitive clauses in German
- Purpose: um … zu vs damitExpressing purpose in German — choosing the right construction
- (an)statt/ohne … zu and (an)statt/ohne dassExpressing "instead of doing" and "without doing" — with infinitive clauses or full subordinate clauses
- Two-part conjunctionsPaired connectors that link ideas in parallel, contrast, or proportion
- Genitive caseExpressing possession, attribution, and more with the genitive
- N-declension: weak masculine nounsNouns like Kollege, Student, and Herr that take -(e)n in every case except the nominative singularfree conjugation drill
- Adjectives as nounsNominalized adjectives: declension, capitalization, and neuter abstracts
- Participles as adjectivesUsing Partizip I and Partizip II as attributive adjectives with full declension endings
- Attributive comparatives & superlatives + declension after quantifiersDeclined comparative and superlative adjectives in attributive position, and how adjective endings shift after alle, viele, einige, mehrere, and wenige.
- Consequence and reason adverbsdarum, deswegen, deshalb, daher, aus diesem Grund, nämlich
- Expressions with esImpersonal subject, fixed expressions, and placeholder es
- Modal particles Idenn, doch, eigentlich, ja, mal
- Dative of involvement: body parts and benefactivesUsing a dative pronoun instead of a possessive with body parts, clothing, and affected persons
- Directional adverbs hin and herExpressing direction away from or toward the speaker
- schon, noch, erstExpressing expectations about time and quantity
- Expressing the English progressiveHow German conveys ongoing actions without a progressive tense
- Article use: generalizations, names and abstractsWhen German requires the definite article where English often drops it
- Adjectives with dative complementsMir ist kalt — adjectives that govern the dative
B2Upper intermediate27 topics
- Konjunktiv II: the full meaning systemUnreal conditions, wishes, comparisons, and verb-first conditionals — synthetic forms and würde + infinitive
- Formal genitive prepositionsaufgrund, infolge, anhand, bezüglich … — the genitive in formal writing
- Konjunktiv I (reported speech)Indirect speech in formal and journalistic German
- Extended participial attributesCompressing relative clauses into a single noun phrase
- Nominalization and nominal styleTurning verbs and adjectives into nouns, and converting between verbal and nominal style
- Zustandspassiv (sein-passive)Using sein + past participle to express a resulting state
- Passive alternatives and subjectless passivesWays to express passive meaning without the werden-passive, and passives with no grammatical subject
- Subjective (epistemic) modal verbsUsing modal verbs to express deduction, probability, hearsay, and unverified claims
- Modal Perfekt and double-infinitive orderHow to form the perfect and Konjunktiv II past of modal verbs, and where to place the auxiliary in subordinate clauses
- Futur IIwerden + perfect infinitive for completed future actions and confident past assumptions
- Causal relations three waysweil/da — denn — wegen/aufgrund
- Temporal relations: clause vs prepositionSwitching between temporal subordinate clauses and prepositional noun phrases
- Conditional relations: wenn/falls, verb-first, bei + nounFour ways to express conditions in German — from everyday clauses to formal nominal phrases
- Concessive relations: obwohl — trotzdem — trotzExpressing contrast and concession across clause types and registers
- Consecutive relationssodass, so … dass, infolgedessen, and related result connectors
- Modal relations: indem, dadurch dass, durchExpressing means and manner in German
- Adversative relations (während, wohingegen, dagegen)Expressing contrast between two facts in German
- dass-clauses and their equivalentsReplacing dass-clauses with zu-infinitives, nominal phrases, and correlates
- Advanced relative clauseswas, wo(r)-, and wer as relative pronouns
- Noun-verb collocations (Funktionsverbgefüge)Fixed noun-verb pairs where the noun carries the meaning and the verb, article, and preposition are locked in place.
- Nouns and adjectives with fixed prepositionsFixed preposition–case pairings on nouns and adjectives, and da(r)-correlates before dependent clauses
- Indefinite pronouns IIirgend-, mancher, sämtliche, and the extended indefinite system
- Word formation: suffixes, prefixes, Fugen-sProductive derivation with noun and adjective suffixes, negating prefixes, adverbial -weise, and the linking -s- in compounds
- Mittelfeld word orderTeKaMoLo, pronouns, and nicht inside the verb bracket
- Text reference words (Verweiswörter)Cohesion devices that point across sentences: da(r)-compounds, das/dies as sentence anaphors, solch-/derartig-, and deshalb/dadurch
- Modal particles IIhalt, eben, wohl, schon, bloß
- Verb prefixes: inseparable meanings and variable prefixesHow be-, er-, ver-, ent-, zer- shape meaning — and why um-, über-, durch-, unter- can go either way