Mar 18, 2022
Learn German with Me: Day 7 — Sentence Structure and Irregular Verbs
How to make sentences in German
Our brain absorbs rhythm to fathom order. A child understands the structure of a sentence without understanding the technicality of subject-verb-object because his brain absorbs the sounds around it and comes up with an algorithm to identify the right structure. Another important factor that helps in synchronizing the words in the appropriate format is repetition both orally as well as in writing. So, please pick up a notebook and a pen and by the end of today, you should have at least five sentences written in your notebook that you can speak fluently.
Let’s begin!
The basic sentence structure in German is-
SUBJECT-VERB-OBJECT
Points to be noted-
1. There are two types of ‘you’ in German. Formal and informal. Formal is for elders, strangers, teachers, etc. Informal is used for friends, family, etc. Formal you is ‘Sie’. S of Sie is always capitalized and it is singular and plural both.
2. Bin, bis, ist, sind, seid are all conjugations of the verb sein. Sein is an irregular verb. There are more than 200 irregular verbs in German but we don’t need to know all of them.
3. The difference between the regular and irregular German verbs as well as weak, strong, and mixed verbs is something I am still trying to understand. I have read over 20 articles and watched innumerable videos but I have not yet been able to come up with an easy and clear explanation. So, hang in there…
4. Summarizing the table above-
· ich — bin
· du — bist(sing)
· ihr — seid(plural)
· er/sie/es — ist
· wir/sie — sind
· Sie — sind(formal)
Haben(have), werden(become) are also important irregular verbs. Try conjugating them with respect to the pronoun.
Vocabulary Building- Five words for today are-
- Revision phrase — Auf Wiedersehen (Goodbye).
- Use Wiktionary for finding pronunciations.
- After you finish reading this, go to Duolingo and complete the second level of FAMILY and the first level of RESTAURANT.
- Add Toucan to your browser.
That’s all for today. It is alright if you cannot understand this in one go. We have lots of lessons for sentence making. If you liked my approach, please tap the clap button and share this with your friends who want to learn new languages. Please follow me and tell me in the comments section how can I improve this language guide. If you are looking for the book I am using, it is THIS. Danke! Tschüss.
