German – topics & flashcards

Overview of the "thinking method": pause, think each answer through and say it aloud, don't memorize or write anything down, work in short relaxed sessions rather than cramming. No German taught yet.

Many Germanic-root English verbs convert by adding -en: learn→lernen, find→finden, come→kommen. ich will (I want — related to "voluntary"/"amateur", not the future auxiliary "will"), ich kann (I can / I am able to). Consonant shift English P→F: hope→hoffen, help→helfen. Vowel shifts can look random but are learnable in context: sleep→schlafen, ripen→reifen, ape→Affe, ship→Schiff. nicht (not); ein- = "in-" (einschlafen, to fall asleep).

Questions are formed by inverting subject and verb, just like English: kann ich kommen? (can I come?). To keep the German-friendly structure, undo English contractions first — "can't I go" → "can I not go?" → kann ich nicht gehen?. More P→F practice (helfen) and more disguised cognates surface once you know the shift patterns: reifen (ripen), Affe (ape), Schiff (ship). Combine with einschlafen (to fall asleep): ich kann nicht einschlafen.

Dropping the infinitive's -en gives the "I" form: kommen→ich komme, lernen→ich lerne, hoffen→ich hoffe (not "ich hoff"). es (it): ich will es, contracted colloquially to ich will's. Negation sits after the verb/object: ich finde es nicht (I don't find it — "I find it not"). New consonant shift English TH→D: thank→danke/danken, think→denken. baden (to bathe), Bad (bath). Bruder (brother, mein Bruder = my brother). Ding (thing, = English "thing"). denn (then/because), used like English "then" to mean "because": kann mein Bruder kommen, denn ich kann nicht.

morgen means both "tomorrow" and "morning" (cf. Spanish mañana) — with a time word like this, German drops any equivalent of "will" for the future: ich helfe morgen = I'll help tomorrow. Confirmed sound shift: German W sounds like English V (seen in the spelling of will). waschen (to wash). wir (we, cf. English contraction "we're") takes the plain infinitive form: wir kommen = we come/we're coming. wollen (to want, infinitive) is irregular against ich will but shows the link to "voluntary" clearly. New shift: English S can sound like Z — sehen (to see): wir sehen es, ich sehe es morgen.

Sie (formal "you" / "they" — S sounds like Z, ie sounds like "ee") takes the plain infinitive: Sie kommen. Negation order: verb, then nicht (Sie kommen nicht); a time word sits before nicht (Sie kommen morgen nicht). Questions invert subject and verb for any subject, not just pronouns: kommen Sie morgen?, kommen die Kinder? — tone of voice distinguishes a statement from a question (and gehen wir! "let's go!" from gehen wir? "are we going?"). die (the, used here for plural/collective), die Kinder (the children, cf. Kindergarten). singen (to sing, S→Z again). sie serves for both "they" and "them" — no English-style change.

mich (me). Negation/word-order recap: sehen Sie mich morgen nicht? (won't you see me tomorrow?). New consonant shift English T→S: it→es, eat→essen, water→Wasser (also W→V), better→besser, hate→hassen, forget→vergessen (guessable once you strip -en and apply the shift). Idiom: ich vergesse mich (lit. "I forget myself") = I lose my temper/get carried away. müssen: ich muss (I must/have to); crucially ich muss nicht means "I don't have to", not "I mustn't" — muss ich? = must I?/do I have to?

t→s and d/th→d shifts recap: das (this/that), ist (is), groß (big/great) → Das ist groß, Das ist nicht groß. Comparative besser (better); question inversion (Ist das nicht besser?). aus (out) → ausgehen (to go out); denn (because/then, "then" doubling as "because"). Playful compound: einschlafen (to fall asleep, "in-sleep") vs ausschlafen (to sleep in, "out-sleep"). was (what, w→v, t→s), wollen (to want) → Was wollen Sie essen?, Was ist das? es (it) → es ist (it is).

Recap of the shifts seen so far: P→F, T→S, TH→D, S sounding like Z, W→V, German V→F. verstehen (to understand, ver+stehen "to stand") conjugated with ich/wir and drilled with nicht, es, sie/Sie, mich. spät (late) → Spätkauf (convenience store, lit. "late-buy", a common Berlin sign), from which kaufen (to buy) is extracted. später (later, "late"+er, same pattern as English). verkaufen (to sell, ver+kaufen) and vergessen (to forget) show the productive ver- prefix. Imperative: Verkaufen Sie es! (Sell it!) / Verkaufen Sie es nicht! (Don't sell it!).

senden (to send, s sounding like z). The neutral position for a time expression is right before nicht: Ich kaufe es morgen nicht (I'm not buying it tomorrow) — but it can shift for emphasis: Ich kaufe es nicht morgen (I'm not buying it tomorrow [I'm buying it Tuesday]). übermorgen (the day after tomorrow, lit. "over-tomorrow") introduces the ü umlaut (rounded lips held while shaping an [e] sound), alongside the earlier ä in spät.

Conceptual track: German's word order is framed as a system for preventing listener presumption/interruption — when a sentence has two verbs, the first verb (e.g. will, "want") opens the sentence, everything else is packed into the middle, and the second verb (the infinitive, e.g. kaufen) is saved for the very end, so the listener can't guess the full idea early. Drilled with Ich will es kaufen (I want to buy it) → Ich will es morgen kaufen (I want to buy it tomorrow).

Extends the two-verb pattern to nicht: modal, then es, then the time expression, then nicht, then the infinitive last — Ich will es morgen nicht kaufen, Ich kann es morgen nicht senden. später reused: Ich kann es später nicht kaufen. New: bleiben (to stay, spelled with ei → [aɪ], as in einschlafen) and hier (here, spelled with ie → [iː], as in Sie/die) — contrasted so the two spellings aren't confused. Drilled: Ich kann hier bleiben, Ich kann morgen nicht hier bleiben.

jetzt (now, related to English "yet" + an added -st). Contractions: sie wollen's (they want it). Modal + infinitive "sandwich": was wollen sie jetzt essen? (what do they want to eat now?) — the conjugated modal comes second, the infinitive closes the sentence. können (can/to be able, irregular kann; ö as in "bird"). kaufen (to buy) / verkaufen (to sell, ver- prefix). bleiben (to stay), hier (here — ie = long "ee", as opposed to ei = "i" as in bleiben). Time expressions come before nicht: Ich kann jetzt nicht hier bleiben (I can't stay here now).

da (there; English TH → German D). müssen (must/have to, irregular ich muss, no umlaut). A wave of Latin verbs ending -ieren (pronounced roughly [iən]): organisieren, studieren, adoptieren, aktivieren, argumentieren, boykottieren, autorisieren, attackieren, definieren, demolieren, deportieren, funktionieren, informieren, interessieren, kopieren, existieren. Latin C (as in reduce, accept) → German Z (pronounced "ts"): reduzieren, akzeptieren. uns (us): Sie müssen uns informieren (they must inform us).

Colloquial dropping of the final -e on "I" forms: ich bleibe → ich bleib, ich komme → ich komm (distinct from the true irregularity of kann/will/muss). du (informal you, from archaic English "thou", TH→D) takes -st: gehen → du gehst, verstehen → du verstehst. nichts (nothing/anything = nicht + s), colloquially nix. wollen (to want, irregular du willst), können (irregular du kannst). sehen (to see): Kannst du es sehen?

machen (to do/make) shows the English K → German CH pattern: make/machen, break/brechen, speak/sprechen. du machst, was machst du? (what are you doing / what do you do). The du-forms of irregular modals keep the singular-I irregularity minus the umlaut: du musst, du kannst. bald (soon): du musst es bald machen. Regular -st: du organisierst, du singst (singen, S pronounced Z).

The du/ou→u pattern: thou→du, course→Kurs, mouth→Mund, ground→Grund, round→rund. ein (a, masc/neuter) vs eine (a, feminine) — many feminine nouns end in unstressed -e: eine Bluse (a blouse), eine Wunde (a wound), eine Suppe (a soup). mein/meine (my), dein/deine (your, informal): mein Bruder ist jung (my brother is young), wo ist deine Strasse? (Strasse shows the German T→S shift, as in street/Strasse). Haus (house, not feminine → mein/dein Haus).

haben (to have, ich habe / colloquial ich hab'). kein/keine = "no" in the sense of "not any": das ist kein Problem, ich habe kein Problem. du hast (irregular, historically from habst). The unstressed -e marks both feminine and plural — first seen with Kind → Kinder (child/children, an irregular plural): meine Kinder, wir haben keine Kinder (we have no children).

eins (one) → ein/eine (a). zwei (two, T→Z, W→English V, EI→"i"). zu = "to" (as in "too quiet"), English T → German Z. es ist warm (it is warm), es ist zu warm (too warm). The comparative -er frequently triggers an umlaut on the stem vowel: warm → wärmer, gross → grösser, kalt → kälter (o→ö, a→ä; can't be added to e, i, or already-umlauted vowels).

(ich habe) Lust (I feel like it/I'm in the mood, literally "I have desire"); with a following verb it needs zu: ich habe Lust zu gehen (I feel like going) — zu marks an implied "in order to". etwas (something/somewhat), often contracted to was in speech: willst du was kochen? (do you want to cook something?). More umlauted comparatives: größer, wärmer.

suchen (to search/seek, K→CH as in seek/suchen): ich suche es, was suchst du?. Adding ver- gives versuchen (to try) — VER- is common but its effect on meaning is unpredictable (stehen→verstehen, kaufen→verkaufen, suchen→versuchen). ich versuche es zu machen (I'm trying to do it — zu again for "in order to"). besuchen (to visit, BE- prefix): ich besuche, du besuchst.

du (subject) vs dich (object) — the same I/me distinction as ich/mich: ich verstehe dich (I understand you). Sie stays the same for subject and object (formal/plural). After a stem ending in t or d, du takes -est instead of -st (for pronounceability): warten → du wartest, finden → du findest, antworten → du antwortest. auf = "on/for" with warten: ich warte auf dich.

Recap: ch is soft after i/e (ich, dich, nicht) and hard after other vowels (suchen, machen); English GH/K often maps to this CH. brechen (to break), sprechen (to speak), Deutsch (German — spelled D-EU-T-SCH; the English word "Dutch" comes from this same word, later narrowed to the Netherlands). riechen (to smell, soft ch) vs stinken (to stink/reek). Hund (dog, cf. "hound"). wissen (to know a fact, irregular ich weiß, du weißt): weißt du, wo mein Hund ist?

German nouns are masculine, feminine, or neuter (English keeps this distinction only in he/she/it). die = "the" for feminine and plural (paralleling sie = she/they). es = "it" (neuter) ↔ das ("es" + D) = "the" for neuter, also "this/that": das Kind (neuter), das Haus. der ("the", masculine) ↔ er (he): der Hund, der Mann. All four pairs (er-der, sie-die, es-das) carry the same TH→D-derived consonant.

Three main plural patterns, reviewed together: -er (often with umlaut) for short neuter/masc. words — Kind→Kinder, Wort→Wörter, Mann→Männer; -e (sometimes with umlaut) — Hund→Hunde, Hand→Hände, Wurst→Würste, but not always — Jahr→Jahre; -en/-n for words already ending in a vowel sound — Katze→Katzen, Frau→Frauen, Nachbar→Nachbarn. The -e ending is ambiguous between feminine singular and plural (die Katze/die Katzen look alike without context/umlaut). All German nouns are capitalized, partly to keep plural nouns in -en distinct from verbs.

Nachbar (neighbour, GH→CH as in neighbor/Nachbar; literally "near-builder": nach = towards/near, bauen = to build), plural Nachbarn. lachen (to laugh), laut (loud): mein Nachbar ist zu laut. -heit = English -hood, always feminine, another D→T shift: Kindheit (childhood). More d↔t / gh↔ch pairs: Garten/garden, Wort/word, Tochter/daughter, Schulter/shoulder (+ou→u), trinken/drink, tanzen/dance (Latin C→Z again). bitten (to ask/ask for; "please" = bitte; cf. English "I bid you"), fahren (to travel/ride, as in "farewell" = "travel well"): meine Nachbarn fahren nach Berlin. Ich bitte dich zu kommen (I'm asking you to come).

Just as English adds -s for he/she/it, German adds -t to the bare stem: kommen → er kommt, bleiben → sie bleibt, besuchen → er besucht, verstehen → er versteht, machen → es macht, stinken → es stinkt, riechen → es riecht. es macht nichts = "it doesn't matter" (literally "it makes nothing"). tun (to do, from English "do", D→T): es tut mir leid (I'm sorry, literally "it does to me suffering") — mir/dir = "to me"/"to you" (parallel to mich/dich). meine Schulter tut weh (my shoulder hurts).

scheinen (to shine, also "to seem": es scheint so = it seems so). The prefix ER- shifts meaning fairly randomly: erscheinen (to appear, to come out — a film/book), klären (to clarify/sort out) → erklären (to explain). der Film (masc.), bald (soon; final -d sounds like -t). wir müssen (we must). Object-pronoun word order: kannst du es mir erklären? (can you explain it to me — lit. "...it to-me explain").

sagen (to say) shows the Y→G English/German consonant shift (say/saga ~ sagen). er sagt (he says), sie sagt mir (she's telling me), sie sagt es mir (she's telling it to me). was (what, w→v and t→s shifts), etwas (something) — not a "little word," so it goes after the verb: sie sagt mir etwas. -st ending for "you": was sagst du mir?. nicht (not) + -s → nichts (nothing/anything): du musst mir nichts sagen. uns (us/to us): sie sagen uns nichts.

man sagt (one says — used for "how do you say..." to avoid sounding personal), wie (how), auf Deutsch (in German): wie sagt man es auf Deutsch? (question inversion). machen (to do/make) spins off separable prefix-verbs, a very Germanic feature also seen in English phrasal verbs (make up/make out/make for): aufmachen (open, "es ist auf" = it's open), zumachen (close), anmachen (turn on). ich darf (I may/I'm allowed) vs ich muss (I must): negated, darf nicht = mustn't/not allowed, but muss nicht = don't have to — a key distinction. noch nicht (not yet).

wie geht's? (how are you, contraction of geht + es). sehen (to see) branches into ansehen (look at), zusehen (watch), aussehen (to look — ich will gut aussehen), auf Wiedersehen (goodbye, lit. "until seeing again"), übersehen (overlook), vorsehen/Vorsicht (caution — ch↔gh shift). abmachen (remove; also "to agree on"). legen (to lay/put, another Y→G shift: lay→legen) → die Gelegenheit (opportunity, from legen + -heit = "-hood," and -heit words are feminine: die Kindheit = childhood). auflegen (hang up the phone), auslegen (display; also to front someone money to be repaid).

Full modal conjugation, all sharing an ich/du irregularity that then carries to er/sie/es: wollen (want: ich will, du willst, wir wollen), können (can: ich kann, du kannst, wir können — ö like the vowel in "bird"), müssen (must: ich muss, du musst — loses the umlaut), wissen (to know a fact: ich weiss/du weisst — weiss also = "white"). nehmen (to take) + mit (with) → mitnehmen (to take away). dürfen (to be allowed: ich darf, du darfst) + mitkommen (to come with/accompany): darf er mitkommen?

Spoken German overwhelmingly prefers the haben + participle perfect even where English would use simple past ("did you laugh?" = "have you laughed?"). Build the participle from the er/sie/es present-tense form + ge- prefix: lachen→lacht→gelacht (ich habe gelacht), machen→macht→gemacht (ich habe es gemacht — object goes between habe and gemacht). du hast, er hat (irregular short forms of haben). warum (why): warum hat er es noch nicht gemacht?

gestern (yesterday, y→g shift). Practice: kaufen→gekauft (ich habe es gekauft). Some irregular participles are "ancient" shared irregularities with English once you apply the sound shifts: bringen→gebracht (brought — gh↔ch shift makes "bracht"/"brought" nearly identical), verstehen→verstanden (understood): ich habe verstanden. nichts doubles for "anything" in a negative context: ich habe nichts verstanden (I haven't understood anything).

warten→gewartet (an extra -e- is inserted before -t since the stem already ends in -t: er wartet, er hat auf mich gewartet — "auf mich" = for me). kosten→gekostet: wie viel kostet es? (how much does it cost — verb-first question inversion), wie viel hat es gekostet? (how much did it cost). More English-like irregular participles: finden→gefunden (found), sehen→gesehen (seen: ich habe gesehen). ihn (him): ich habe ihn gestern gesehen (I saw him yesterday).

sie covers she/her and they/them unchanged; er (he)/ihn (him). für (for) — the umlaut Ü is a U-shape mouth pronouncing E: ich habe es für ihn gemacht. The suchen-family (versuchen = to try, besuchen = to visit, aussuchen = to pick out) illustrates the rule for whether a prefix separates: if the prefix is a standalone word and carries the stress (auf-, an-, aus-), it splits off to the end of the clause in a finite sentence (ich mache es morgen auf = I'm opening it tomorrow); if the prefix isn't a word on its own and is unstressed (ver-, be-), it never separates (ich versuche, ich besuche ihn morgen). ankommen (to arrive) splits the same way: ich komme morgen an, wir wollen morgen ankommen (stays whole after a modal, since ankommen is still in its "to" form).

Confirms the split-verb past rule: a movable prefix (an-, aus-) makes way for ge- (angemacht, turned on; ausgesucht, chosen), while an unmovable prefix (ver-, be-) blocks ge- and the verb just takes -t (versucht, tried; besucht, visited; verkauft, sold). machen (to do/make), suchen (to search), kaufen/verkaufen (to buy/sell), warum (why), heute (today).

The regular "have past" is built from the he/she/it form (drop -en, keep -t) plus ge-: machen → gemacht, warten → gewartet (wait auf someone, not "for"). Irregular participles often mirror English irregulars: bringen→gebracht (brought), sehen→gesehen (seen), essen→gegessen (eaten). schon = already/yet, noch nicht = not yet, noch nichts = nothing yet. "It" depends on gender: es (das Telefon), ihn (der Fernseher), sie (die Lampe).

Non-separable verbs (suchen→besucht/versucht) and Latin loanverbs ending -ieren (studieren, organisieren, korrigieren, servieren, kollaborieren, intervenieren) both form the past with just -t, no ge- — German seems to treat -ieren verbs like it treats non-splittable prefixed verbs. lange (long), gestern (yesterday), vorgestern (the day before yesterday, "over-yesterday" pattern), alles (everything/all).

More -ieren verbs: kapieren (to get/understand, from Latin "capture"), reparieren (to repair). Same word for train has two genders depending on the word chosen: der Zug (from ziehen, to pull) vs. die Bahn (track, also used for train) — a reminder that grammatical gender belongs to the word, not the object, so "it" (ihn/sie) depends on which word you had in mind. nehmen (to take), morgen (tomorrow), übermorgen (the day after tomorrow, "over-tomorrow").

Introduces the dative personal pronouns: mich→mir (to me), dich→dir (to you), ihn→ihm (to him), sie→ihr (to her). sagen (to say/tell) takes a dative recipient: Was hast du ihr gesagt? (What did you tell her?). vermachen (to leave behind/bequeath), das Haus (house), etwas (something), aber (but).

geben (to give, gegeben past) shows the v↔b consonant shift also seen in leben (live), lieben (love), glauben (believe), Rabe (raven). Recipients of "give" take dative (mir, dir, ihm, ihr, uns, ihnen). weggeben (to give away, separable — "weg" is stressed, from the same root as English "way"), past weggegeben. sieben (seven), Kind (child, final -d hardens to a t sound).

helfen (to help) and vergeben (to forgive, non-separable ver-, past = vergeben unchanged) both take a dative object (mir, not mich) — German frames these as "help/forgive to someone." fragen (to ask, from the same root as English "pray"; p↔f shift) breaks the pattern and takes the plain accusative (mich, dich, ihn), not dative — a reminder that each verb's own logic must be checked rather than assumed. niemand (nobody).

wir→uns (us, unchanged for "to us" too). sprechen (to speak, k↔ch shift like machen/suchen). ansprechen (separable: to bring up in conversation, or "to appeal to/speak to" someone — here the "to" meaning already lives in an-, so the person takes accusative mich, not dative). aussprechen (to pronounce). Past gesprochen. Contrast schon (already) with schön (beautiful) — same sounds, different words. gut (good/well), versprechen (to promise).

brechen (to break; colloquially kaputtmachen), past gebrochen (mirrors English "broken"). lehren (to teach), der Lehrer (teacher). unterbrechen (to interrupt) doesn't split — stress stays on -brechen, not unter-. Introduces case marking on the definite article for masculine nouns: der Lehrer (he/subject) → den Lehrer (him/direct object, from d + ihn) → dem Lehrer (to him, from d + ihm). immer (always).

Recaps the e→i stem shift for du/er with brechen→bricht, sprechen→spricht, geben→gibt (but no change for the plural: sie geben). die Lehrerin (female teacher, -in suffix). Feminine nouns don't distinguish subject/object (sie = she/her, die stays die) but do change for dative: die Lehrerin → der Lehrerin (to her, from d + ihr). es gibt = "there is/are" (literally "it gives"); question form Gibt es...?; noch = still/any left.

der Koch / die Köchin (cook, with Umlaut in the feminine). ankommen (to arrive, separable). The indefinite article takes the same accusative shift as der: ein Zug → einen Zug (from ein + ihn), e.g. Es gibt einen Zug (there is a train). der Aufzug (elevator, "up-pull"). Full recap: masculine der/den/dem, feminine die/die/der — case depends on how the noun "behaves" (subject / direct object / recipient), for any noun, not just people.

ein Freund / eine Freundin (friend, also boyfriend/girlfriend). Possessives (mein, dein) case-inflect exactly like ein: meinen Freund (accusative), meiner Freundin (dative feminine), deinem Freund (dative masculine). Plural die Freunde (-e plural). ihnen = to them (built like ihn + plural -en). senden (to send), die E-Mail.

schreiben (to write). Plural nouns die Kinder (children, -er plural) and die Köche (cooks, -e plural + Umlaut). In the dative plural, both the article and the noun pick up an -n (from ihnen): die Kinder → den Kindern, die Köche → den Köchen. du wartest (an extra -e- before -st when the stem ends in -t). müssen (must/have to, Umlaut).

sein (to be): ich bin, du bist, er/sie/es ist, wir/sie sind — as irregular as English "am/is/are." dick (fat) / dünn (thin), th↔d shift; so (so), zu (too). Weekdays built from recognisable roots: Donnerstag (Thursday, "thunder's day"), Montag (Monday, moon day), Mittwoch (Wednesday, midweek), Sonntag (Sunday, sun day), used with am (on). Verbs of motion/change-of-location (gehen, kommen, ausgehen) form the perfect with sein rather than haben: ich bin gegangen (I have gone/I am gone), bist du ausgegangen? (did you go out?). End of the audio segment of Complete German.