der Junge, den Jungen: the nouns that take an n
CEFR B2 · part 1
edumaterial's parts within the level. The European framework does not subdivide them.
The passive in the past and with modals: wurde gebaut, muss gemacht werdenTaking the passive into the tenses that were missing. In the Präteritum only werden…Die Tür wird geöffnet or ist geöffnet: the action and the stateTelling apart two sentences that look alike and mean different things. Die Tür wird…Er sagte, er sei krank: the Konjunktiv I of the newspapersReporting what somebody else said without making it yours. German has a verb form just…Er muss krank sein: when the modal is not an order but a guessThe modals' second job, the one the dictionary does not mention. Er muss krank sein is…Der gestern von uns gekaufte Tisch: a whole clause wedged inside the articleReading —and taking apart— the construction that makes German technical prose look…dennoch, folglich, hingegen: the connectors of written GermanThe connectors that make a text read as if an adult wrote it: dennoch for concession…The rule, in three lines
A closed group of masculine nouns that add an n in EVERY case except the nominative singular: der Junge but den Jungen, dem Jungen, des Jungen. Almost all of them are people —Student, Kunde, Mensch, Kollege, Nachbar, Herr— and you spot them by the ending: in e, or in ent, ist, ant.
The usual slip. Leaving it off, which is what everybody does, and saying ich sehe den Student. It is understood, but it is the mistake that most marks you out as a foreigner in writing, because a German notices it the way an English speaker notices «he don't». And the reverse error, rarer but worse: adding an n to an ordinary masculine, den Tischen.
Why it catches you out. English lost its case endings centuries ago and has nothing here. What helps is that the group is small, closed and mostly transparent: student, president, policeman, client, colleague. Learn the list and you own the unit.