will give you some basic nouns and adjectives and teach you how to use them as
well as negate them.
will give you some basic vocabulary, starting with nouns in the first list
followed by adjectives in the second list.
der Mann man
die Frau woman
das Mädchen girl
der Junge boy
die Katze cat
der Hund dog
das Buch book
der Tisch table
der Stuhl chair
das Zimmer room
important to remember that ALL proper nouns are capitalized in German. This
includes Sie when it is used as a formal pronoun (meaning “you”). All nouns
also carry what is called an “article.” The basic articles in German are der,
die, and das. Keep in mind that “die” in German is pronounced like “dee” and
“das” is pronounced like “dass.” The German “w” is pronounced like a “v” in
Take a look
at the following example sentences to learn how to use the vocabulary above.
Der Mann ist
The man is
Die Frau ist
The woman is
Das Mädchen ist sehr
The girl is
The room is
Der Hund ist
The dog is
the sentence starts with the noun and is followed by the correct conjugation of
the verb (in this case the verb “to be”). The adjectives follow and it is
grammatically correct to have them end the sentence in these examples.
In order to
negate a noun, the correct form of the word “kein” must be used. The form of
the word will depend on the article that appears before the noun.
Der is the
masculine article, die is feminine, and das is neutral. Kein changes to keine
when used before the article die. When used with der and das, kein is
appropriate. When using kein, the article does not need to appear before the
Ich bin kein Mann. This sentence uses kein because the article of Mann is der.
Der is replaced by kein. This sentence translates to “I am not a man.”
example: Das ist keine Katze. Keine is used because die is the article that
appears before Katze. This sentence means, “That is not a cat.”
In order to
negate an adjective, you must use the word nicht.
Die Frau ist nicht alt. Nicht appears before the adjective it is negating. This
sentence means “The woman is not old.”