Why German is easy

by
Benny Lewis
 About the author............................................................................................ 5
Table of contents
Introduction.................................................................................................... 6
Having the right learning approach.............................................................8
Make mistakes!...............................................................................................10
A positive attitude is the key ….............…....................................................12

Part one: Grammar…......................................................................................14

German and English: close cousins with many similarities.....................15
Noun Genders ................................................................................................20
Plurals ............................................................................................................22
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Why German is Easy
 Irregular noun declensions........................................................................25
Cases............................................................................................................ 26
Table of contents
Adjective endings..............................................................…........................28
Prepositions and cases................................................................................29
Conjugation ….............…................................................................................31
Irregular verbs and past tenses…...............................................................33
Separable verbs.............................................................................................36
Word order ....................................................................................................38

Part two: Vocabulary....................................................................................40

Why German is the same as English...........................................................41

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Why German is Easy
 Germanic words.............................................................................................42
English loan words.......................................................................................43
Other international loan words...................................................................45
Table of contents
Word formation..............................................................…............................46

Resources......................................................................................................49
Grammar........................................................................................................50
Vocabulary.....................................................................................................52

Conclusion….............…..................................................................................54

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PLURALS
Why can't German just add an 's' for plurals like in English??
This question actually ignores the many irregular plurals we have in English too.
By far the most common plural ending for feminine nouns (and occasionally for some
Masc/Neut ones) is n or en. This sounds familiar when you look at certain English words, like
ox/en and child/ren.
In English we actually did this quite a lot in times past! The archaic/poetic word brethren, now
used in fraternal order, actually used to be the standard plural form of brother (initially
written brether).
This is even more evident in word root changes. For example, English has foot/feet,
(wo)man/men, tooth/teeth, mouse/mice, goose/geese. This is actually more complicated than
the German equivalent of adding an umlaut and no ending or e/er endings in words like
Hand/Hände, Wand/Wände, Nacht/Nächte, Apfel/Äpfel, Vater/Väter.
Some teachers suggest that you simply learn the plural as you learn the word (so
theoretically, every single time you meet a new word you would have to learn the gender, the
plural, the word itself as well as any special case declensions – phew, sounds exhausting!)
When you have the time to do this, that's fine, but it's not a practical solution, especially for
beginner to intermediate learners who have many other things to worry about. So once again,
it's time for some short-cuts!
One of the books I like that I list in the Resources section is Hammer's German Grammar and
Use (Martin Durrell), and I got the following statistics from that book:
• Most masculine nouns have a plural in (-e) or (¨e) – the Umlaut goes over about half of
the nouns where it would be possible (so not over i or e), e.g. Arm/Arme, Hund/Hunde,
Fuß/Füße, Stuhl/Stühle.
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Why German is Easy
• Most masculine nouns ending in -el, -en, or -er form their plural without an ending or
umlaut, e.g. Onkel, Bäcker, Computer (same in singular and plural)
• A small number of masculine nouns have the plural (-en) or (-n), especially “weak nouns”
(see any grammar book explanation for what this means).
• There are exceptions that most grammar books list, but these are very small in
number, so try to learn them but focus on the approximations above.

• Over 90% of all feminine nouns have the plural (-en)/(-n), e.g. Arbeit(en), Regel(n),
Studentin(nen) [last n gets doubled for -in ending nouns]
• About a quarter of feminine monosyllables have a plural in (¨e), e.g. Hand/Hände,
Nacht/Nächte, Stadt/Städte, etc.

• About three quarters of neuter nouns have the plural (-e), e.g. Bein(e), Jahr(e)
• Slightly less than a quarter of neuter nouns have the plural (¨er)/(-er). The Umlaut is
used if possible and the majority are either monosyllabic e.g. Dorf/Dörfer, Kind/Kinder or start
with Ge: Gesicht(er), Gehalt(er), Geschlecht(er)
• Neuter nouns ending in -el, -en, -er (note that this is the same as for masculine),
diminutives in -chen, -lein and words in Ge...e have the same plural as the singular form, e.g.
Mädchen, Gebäude, Messer, Kissen

• (-s) is used with many recent loan-words from English or French: Chef(s), Hotel(s),
Restaurant(s), Team(s), Tunnel(s), for abbreviations like LKW(s) and for most words ending in
a vowel other than unstressed -e: Auto(s), Genie(s)

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There are other possibilities and very occasional exceptions, but these rules cover the vast
majority of all nouns you will come across.

Ideally, you would learn the proper plural of nouns as you come across them, but since this
may not be practical if your priority is as much communication as possible in a short time,
you will, once again, be better off guessing.
Learning off precise plurals should also be low priority when compared to learning new
vocabulary or more important aspects of grammar.
This is another situation where I can confirm from personal experience that Germans
understand you totally fine if you get the wrong plural. If a beginner English learner said
that he saw six mouses, it would sound weird but you would understand it no problem.
In an academic examination you will lose points for writing down the wrong plural, however
with human beings you will gain points for actually saying something, rather than keeping
your mouth shut for fear of saying it wrong.
Based on the statistics above, you actually have a pretty decent chance at guessing the
correct plural! The most common ending is (-e), so try this first. If the singular already ends in
-e, it is slightly more likely to be feminine so add an (-n).
Use this rule of thumb first, then try to learn the above list, and finally get feedback from
natives and read more and you will quickly see the exceptions.
As always, this is not a perfect solution, but saying a word in what sounds like plural will get
you further. The context and use of numbers or die (genderless plural article; even though it's
the same as the feminine article) will make it much clearer that you mean plural.

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WANT TO READ MORE?
If you enjoyed this preview copy, then check out more details for getting your hands on the
full version, and all extras included on the fluent in 3 months blog.
Best of luck hacking German!

- Benny Lewis

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Why German is Easy