Grammar
This is where the rule makes sense. In Exercises you practise until it comes out.
edumaterial's parts within the level. The European framework does not subdivide them.
CEFR A1 part 1
Reading German aloud: first rules
German spelling gives many useful clues, but it is not a perfect copy of speech: learn letter families and keep the exceptions visible.
A13 Your turnder, die, das: learning gender and plural
Gender belongs to the lexical entry: learn article, noun and plural together, and use only genuinely reliable ending clues.
A13 Your turnGerman capitalization: nouns and nominalizations
In German, capitalization is functional: it marks sentence openings, proper names and, characteristically, every noun and word used as a noun.
A13 Your turnGerman present tense: endings and stem changes
The regular present combines a stem with six endings; some verbs adjust pronunciation and others change the vowel only with du and er/sie/es.
A13 Your turnsein and haben: complete paradigms and A1 uses
sein identifies, describes or locates; haben expresses possession and several needs. Their forms are frequent and irregular, so every person must be learned.
A13 Your turnVerb-second: slots, not words
In a declarative main clause, one constituent fills the first slot and the finite verb fills the second; that first constituent may contain several words.
A13 Your turnGerman questions: yes/no and question words
German does not add an auxiliary equivalent to do: a yes/no question begins with the finite verb; an information question begins with the interrogative element and places the verb after it.
A13 Your turnGerman numbers A1: building blocks, order and irregular forms
Numbers are built from stable pieces: learn 0–12 first; from 21 to 99 say the unit before the ten and connect them with und.
A13 Your turn
CEFR A1 part 2
German plurals: five patterns and vowel change
There is no single plural ending: store each noun as article + singular + plural and use patterns to organize, not to guess without checking.
A13 Your turnSeparable verbs in the present: the sentence bracket
In a main clause with a separable verb, the stem carries the conjugation and occupies the verb position; the particle moves to the end and forms a bracket.
A13 Your turnGerman accusative: complete articles and pronouns
The accusative mainly marks the direct object and certain prepositions; in articles, the visible nominative-to-accusative change occurs in the masculine singular.
A13 Your turnnicht or kein: form, case and scope
kein takes the place of ein or a bare plural to deny the existence or quantity of a noun; nicht negates verbs, qualities, complements or contrasts, and its position signals scope.
A13 Your turn
CEFR A2 part 1
German dative A2: forms, functions and government
The dative does not have one single meaning: it marks participants such as recipients or experiencers and is governed by certain verbs and prepositions; form depends on case, gender and number.
A23 Your turnGerman possessives A2: stems and endings
A possessive is built through two independent choices: the stem identifies the possessor, while the ending agrees with the possessed noun in case, gender and number.
A23 Your turnGerman perfect A2: auxiliary and participle
The perfect brackets verbal content between a finite auxiliary in second position and a final participle; the auxiliary follows the verb's construction, not one isolated keyword.
A23 Your turnGerman modal verbs A2: six paradigms
The finite modal occupies the verb position and expresses stance or condition; the lexical verb remains as a final infinitive in a main clause.
A23 Your turn
CEFR A2 part 2
German personal pronouns A2: three cases
The person stays the same, but form changes with the case required by function, verb or preposition.
A23 Your turnGerman imperative A2: du, ihr and Sie formulas
Form depends on the addressee: du and ihr have morphological imperatives; formulas with Sie and wir use the finite verb before the pronoun.
A23 Your turnGerman two-way prepositions A2
These nine prepositions take the accusative when the construction presents a destination or change into a spatial relation, and the dative when it locates something in an established relation.
A23 Your turnGerman preterite A2: sein, haben and modals
The preterite is a simple tense: one finite form expresses past time; sein, haben and modals occur very frequently in it, but its distribution with the perfect varies by register, region and verb.
A23 Your turnGerman subordinate clauses A2: finite verb last
A subordinator occupies the first internal position of a subordinate clause and sends the verb group to the end; the finite form is the last component in basic A2 patterns.
A23 Your turnGerman adjective declension A2: complete tables
The adjective ending shares case, gender and number information with the determiner: a definite article, an ein-word or no article trigger three different patterns.
A23 Your turnGerman comparative and superlative A2
The comparative marks difference with -er and commonly links the second term with als; equality uses so ... wie, while the superlative has a predicative am ...-sten form and an inflected attributive form.
A23 Your turn
CEFR B1 part 1
The genitive: whose it is, and when you say it that way
The genitive expresses possession and other noun relations. Determiners distinguish des and der; many masculine and neuter nouns add -(e)s, while other noun classes follow their own patterns. In everyday speech, von plus the dative is a frequent alternative for many possession relations.
B13 Your turnReflexive verbs: sich, and the mich that is sometimes mir
In a reflexive construction, the pronoun agrees with the person. It is commonly accusative; in patterns such as washing a body part, the explicit object occupies the accusative and the pronoun appears in the dative.
B13 Your turnRelative clauses: der, die, das all over again
The German relative pronoun looks almost like the article, and its form is decided by two separate things: gender and number come from the word it refers back to, while case comes from what it does inside its own clause.
B13 Your turnals, wenn or wann: German's three ways of saying when
In this temporal contrast, wann keeps interrogative force, als locates a non-repeated past frame, and wenn presents repetition, present or future time, or a condition. Translation alone cannot choose the form.
B13 Your turnKonjunktiv II: what is not true and what you ask for politely
Konjunktiv II presents hypotheses, wishes, advice and polite requests. The analytic würde plus infinitive form is productive, while sein, haben and the modals commonly keep frequent dedicated forms.
B13 Your turn
CEFR B1 part 2
The zu-infinitive, and um…zu for purpose
Many German verbs and expressions link to a zu-infinitive, whose placement depends on whether the verb is simple, separable or inseparable. With um…zu, the construction expresses purpose and normally shares its subject with the main clause.
B13 Your turnThe passive with werden: when what matters is the deed, not the doer
The German process passive combines conjugated werden with a participle and foregrounds the process, while the agent may be omitted. It contrasts with the state passive built with sein.
B13 Your turnThe future with werden: plans, predictions and assumptions
German alternates a present tense with a time marker and Futur I with werden. Context makes the choice a plan, a forward-looking stance, a prediction or an assumption.
B13 Your turndarauf, worauf and verbs with a fixed preposition
Many German verbs select a preposition that is learnt as part of their government. To refer back to or ask about things and propositions, standard German forms words with da(r)- or wo(r)-: darauf, damit, worauf, womit.
B13 Your turn
CEFR B2 part 1
N-declension: der Student, den Studenten
A limited group of masculine nouns keeps its base form only in the nominative singular and adds -(e)n in the other cases. Similar-looking nouns may follow mixed patterns and must remain separate.
B23 Your turnSubjective modals: deduction, possibility and source
A modal can describe an obligation or show how the speaker evaluates the truth and source of a claim. The structure looks similar; context changes its function.
B23 Your turnParticiples as adjectives: condensed attributes
A participle can occupy an adjective position and condense an action around a noun. Its ending depends on determiner, gender, number and case, not on its being a participle.
B23 Your turnKonjunktiv I: reporting without endorsing the claim
Konjunktiv I presents words, thoughts or positions as attributed to another source. It does not prove they are false: it marks who owns the claim.
B23 Your turn
CEFR B2 part 2
Past counterfactuals: what did not happen
The Irrealis der Vergangenheit views a past possibility from a present in which we already know it was not realised. It is formed with hätte or wäre and the corresponding verbal content.
B23 Your turnlassen: leave, allow and have something done
lassen changes frame depending on whether it is a lexical verb or governs another infinitive. The visible form may be the same, but its participants and Perfekt are not.
B23 Your turnModal particles: stance and common ground
A modal particle does not add a new object to the world being described: it guides how the sentence fits the interlocutors' expectations, knowledge and relationship.
B23 Your turn
CEFR C1
Concession and clause chaining
Concession links two facts that coexist although one would normally lead us to expect the opposite of the other: it was raining and, contrary to expectation, we went out. The logical content can be retained with obwohl, dennoch or trotz, but each resource builds a different syntactic unit.
C13 Your turnCollocations and function-verb constructions
A collocation is a combination that a speech community selects conventionally. A sentence may be understandable and grammatical yet fail to be the usual choice: German uses eine Entscheidung treffen, eine Frage stellen and Kritik üben. C1 control means managing such associations and selecting them for context, not collecting isolated verbs.
C13 Your turnWritten, spoken and register-appropriate German
There is no automatic translation between 'informal speech' and 'formal writing'. A read-aloud speech is delivered by voice but may be carefully planned; a chat is written but may reproduce conversational proximity, ellipsis and self-repair. At C1, choices follow audience, relationship, purpose, genre, medium and degree of planning.
C13 Your turn
We're writing the rest. New rounds go up every week.
