German for Beginners

Jaksot

• Lesson 25: Wanderlust / The Adjective Endings in the Akkusativ and Dativ 03.01.2025 14min

  First we will cover die Deklination im Akkusativ and then we'll explore the Dativ. We hope you'll find these so helpful you'll refer to them again and again! Review the transcript, study the lesson and do the quizzes: www.newsinslowgerman.com/series/guts/25/transcript
• Lesson 24: Die weibliche Perspektive / Adjective Endings in the Nominative 03.01.2025 13min

  This is one of the most important points in German, and the German language is (in)famous for its endings, so you've likely heard of them already. Here you want to be sure to take small steps and you want to avoid trying to learn all the endings in all the cases all at once. It bears repeating to be sure to learn these adjective endings one case at a time. Review the transcript, study the lesson and do the quizzes: www.newsinslowgerman.com/series/guts/24/transcript
• Lesson 23: Ausgemalt (Envisioned) / Verbs in the Perfekt 03.01.2025 12min

  The word tense or tenses refers to the time that a verb describes. The present tense describes now, today, or currently. The future tense indicates something that will happen later today, tomorrow, or five or 50 years from now. Review the transcript, study the lesson and do the quizzes: www.newsinslowgerman.com/series/guts/23/transcript
• Lesson 22: Reif für die Insel / Verbs in Present and Future Tenses 03.01.2025 9min

  The word tense or tenses refers to the time that a verb describes. The present tense describes now, today, or currently. The future tense indicates something that will happen later today, tomorrow, or five or 50 years from now. Review the transcript, study the lesson and do the quizzes: www.newsinslowgerman.com/series/guts/22/transcript
• Lesson 21: Tooooor (Gooooooal) / Wechselpräpositionen 03.01.2025 14min

  These Wechselpräpositionen are also known as the "two-way prepositions." You could also think of them as double-use prepositions or change-up prepositions. To understand how that double-use functions, you need to already be familiar with the Akkusativ and the Dativ, which you are. First we'll look at the prepositions and then we'll walk through how they are used. Review the transcript, study the lesson and do the quizzes: https://www.newsinslowgerman.com/series/guts/21/transcript
• Lesson 20: Im falschen Film / Präpositionen mit Dativ 02.01.2025 11min

  The Dativ prepositions are also very reliable. Difficult sometimes, but always reliable. Review the transcript, study the lesson and do the quizzes: www.newsinslowgerman.com/series/guts/20/transcript
• Lesson 19: Klavier oder Küche? / Präpositionen mit Akkusativ 02.01.2025 13min

  The two most important things to know about prepositions are: 1. Prepositions tell us how one thing is related to something else.  2. Prepositions are language-specific. Here we won't deal with an exhaustive list of prepositions, but we will work with the most commonly used prepositions. As you discover additional prepositions in the news articles you read, feel free to add to these lists. It's important, too, to note that you don't need to learn an exhaustive list of translations for these prepositions. It's most important that you use the prepositions in German, that you develop a sense of how to do so. Review the transcript, study the lesson and do the quizzes: www.newsinslowgerman.com/series/guts/19/transcript
• Lesson 18: Zombie Nation / Personalpronomen und Possessivpronomen in the Three Cases 02.01.2025 14min

  This lesson serves two purposes: one is to help you learn more about the Personalpronomen (personal pronouns) and the Possessivpronomen with the declensions (endings) they require in the three cases. The other is to serve as a reference for you. If you were to repeat this lesson dozens of times, we'd be thrilled! Review the transcript, study the lesson and do the quizzes: www.newsinslowgerman.com/series/guts/18/transcript
• Lesson 17: Wir sind im Bilde / Dativ 02.01.2025 15min

  The third and final case we'll explore is the Dativ. It's completely unlike the other two cases, so everything really is different in the Dativ. Review the transcript, study the lesson and do the quizzes: www.newsinslowgerman.com/series/guts/17/transcript
• Lesson 16: Schlaue Frauen / Akkusativ 02.01.2025 12min

  The second case we'll explore is the Akkusativ. It's very similar to the Nominativ, with one important difference. Review the transcript, study the lesson and do the quizzes: www.newsinslowgerman.com/series/guts/16/transcript  
• Lesson 15: Märchenwälder / Nominativ 29.12.2024 11min

  As mentioned in lesson 13, there are four cases in German. The cases refer to the very specific ways we must speak about anything in German. The four cases are the Nominative, the Accusative, the Dative, and the Genitive. In German, these cases are called Nominativ, Akkusativ, Dativ und Genitiv. It's easiest and least frustrating when you learn them one at a time, and we're even going to leave one of them out because you don't need it as a beginner. The Genitive is the case we're going to leave out completely. Review the transcript, study the lesson and do the quizzes: www.newsinslowgerman.com/series/guts/15/transcript
• Lesson 14: The Never Ending Story / Simple Past (Limited) 28.12.2024 14min

  The simple past tense has several additional names: the Präteritum (preterite) or the Imperfekt(imperfect). Use whichever name works best for you. Here, we'll use the Präteritum. This is a form of the past tense that is used somewhat in spoken German, somewhat in news articles, and frequently in literature. There won't be a lot of this for you to learn until you reach a high-intermediate level and start reading German literature. Review the transcript, study the lesson and do the quizzes: www.newsinslowgerman.com/series/guts/14/transcript
• Lesson 13: Kleider machen Leute / Possessivartikel 28.12.2024 15min

  To keep things manageable for this beginner's course, we're going to work with the Possessivartikel (the possessive articles) in the Nominative case only. (The Nominative case is one of four cases in German, and these are the only four ways anything can be expressed in German. We'll cover that in the following lessons.) Seeing as there are 36 possessive articles per case, that makes a total of 144 possessive articles for you to learn (36 articles x 4 cases = 144 articles). So you can see why we're only going to cover them in one case. This is also why we heartily recommend you only work on them in one case at a time. Review the transcript, study the lesson and do the quizzes: www.newsinslowgerman.com/series/guts/13/transcript
• Lesson 12: Glück oder Unglück? / Verneinung mit kein und keine 28.12.2024 15min

  You learned kein, keine, kein, keine back in lesson 7.3 as answers to Ja-/Nein-Fragen. You can also simply use them in sentences to say everyday things like "There is no bread in the house" or talk about the fact that "Serena Williams will play no more professional tennis matches." This is how you negate information. Review the transcript, study the lesson and do the quizzes: www.newsinslowgerman.com/series/guts/12/transcript
• Lesson 11: Ein Hundeleben (A dog's life) / Indefinite articles 28.12.2024 12min

  Now that you can see the direct relationship between people, things, pronouns, and definite articles, it's time to branch out one step further to the indefinite articles. If you haven't yet, you'll begin to see even more in this lesson why it's imperative that you work to get a handle on which nouns belong to which der/die/das/die grouping, because that is foundational information for your German learning. Review the transcript, study the lesson and do the quizzes: www.newsinslowgerman.com/series/guts/11/transcript
• Lesson 10: Erfindungen und Entdeckungen / Pronouns 28.12.2024 16min

  In lesson 1 you learned that we can replace someone's name with a pronoun. You may specifically remember that we talked about Gisela (sie): Gisela liest die Nachrichten und trinkt Tee. Here we'll work more on replacing names with pronouns and we'll take that one step further. Review the transcript, study the lesson and do the quizzes: www.newsinslowgerman.com/series/guts/10/transcript
• Lesson 9: Lernen lernen / General review and repetition of articles: der die das 28.12.2024 12min

  In this lesson, we're going to build upon what you learned about the articles in Lesson 3 and add one more layer. We'll also cover a bit of the rules of der/die/das groupings and a couple of techniques to help you learn which article goes with which noun. Review the transcript, study the lesson and do the quizzes: www.newsinslowgerman.com/series/guts/9/transcript
• Lesson 8: Wage es, weise zu sein / W-Fragen 28.12.2024 13min

  Now that you've got a handle on Positions 1 and 2, you can start working with questions that will help you acquire more information than only a Yes/No answer. These are called W-Fragen, or W Questions, which are frequently referred to as open-ended questions. Review the transcript, study the lesson and do the quizzes: www.newsinslowgerman.com/series/guts/8/transcript
• Lesson 7: Traditionen / Ja/Nein-Fragen 27.12.2024 8min

  In lesson 6, we used the verb in Position 1 to create the Imperativ. You also need to utilize Position 1 to ask a question for which there is a Yes or a No answer. So, first be very clear in your mind that we've now switched to asking questions. Review the transcript, study the lesson and do the quizzes: www.newsinslowgerman.com/series/guts/7/transcript 
• Lesson 6: Pick Up After Yourself! / Der Imperativ 26.12.2024 12min

  The command form or Imperativ in German is used differently and much more frequently than it is in English. So, this lesson is as much a cultural lesson as it is a grammatical one. Review the transcript, study the lesson and do the quizzes: www.newsinslowgerman.com/series/guts/6/transcript