1. English Grammar for German Students

2. Why is it important to understand English grammar?
It’s easier to understand what you will learn in this class about German grammar if you already know it in English.
You will be able to see similarities and differences between the two languages.
Using what you already know will expand your knowledge of another language.
It makes you sound smart and articulate 

3. Parts of Speech This is what we will be talking about first.
Nouns
Pronouns
There are several parts of speech that are common among languages. We’ll start with the following ones but there are more:
Verbs
Adjectives
Adverbs
Prepositions

4. Nouns A person, place, thing, or idea
Person: mother, teacher, friend, child, police officer, etc.
Place: Livonia, Germany, the store, home, school, etc.
Thing: pencil, computer, door, airplane, etc.
Idea: freedom, peace, liberty, equality, etc.

5. Nouns In English, we have 2 kinds of nouns, common and proper.
A proper noun is the specific name of someone or something, and in English, we capitalize these nouns. Frau Shannon, Tiny Tim, Churchill High School, Detroit, Michigan.
We do not capitalize the common nouns: teacher, boy, school, city, state.

6. Nouns In German, ALL NOUNS ARE CAPITALIZED.
German nouns also come with their own little words that mean “the”. It is either der, die, or das. These words are called articles. They are NOT capitalized. (More on these later!)
Examples: der Junge (the boy), die Frau (the woman), das Haus (the house)

7. Pronouns A word that replaces the noun in a sentence.
In other words, we use a pronoun instead of a person’s name or title.
Instead of saying “Frau Shannon” to talk about myself, I use the word “I.”
These are some English pronouns: I, you, he, she, it, we, they, me, him, her, us, them.

8. Pronouns--I In English, we always capitalize the pronoun “I“.
In German, the pronoun “ich” means I, and it is only capitalized if it is at the beginning of the sentence.

9. Pronouns--You
In English, we use the pronoun “you” to mean a lot of things.
It can be 1 other person, 2 other people, or tons of people.
It can be used for children, adolescents, and adults.
It can be used for people whom you know and total strangers.
In German, there are many different ways to say “you,” and we will learn about some of them very soon.

10. Verbs Simply put, a verb is an action word.
It is the word that defines what the subject of the sentence is doing.
Some verbs are very easy to identify within a sentence.
The cat runs around the room.
Snoopy chases Woodstock.
The band plays tonight.

11. Verbs
Other verbs don’t express a lot of action, but they are still verbs.
We have homework tonight.
The story is really interesting.
The thunder was really loud.

12. Verbs
When we talk about verbs in class, there are going to be two words that you hear me use a lot.
Infinitive: This is the main form of the verb. In English, verb infinitives start with the word “to”. We say “to go” or “to have.” In German, most verb infinitives end in the letters “en.”
Conjugate: To conjugate a verb is to change its form so that it agrees with its subject.

13. Verbs
Verbs have to be conjugated for both languages. You conjugate verbs in English without even knowing it!
Would you say any of these things?
I runs around the block.
You runs to the store.
He run home.
I goes to the movies.
My mom go to work.

14. Verbs No? I didn’t think so.
You would say “I run” not “I runs” and so on. You probably don’t have to think very hard to do this correctly, and if you hear someone say it wrong, it sounds odd.
In German, it will also be important to conjugate verbs correctly.

15. Adjectives A word that describes a noun.
An adjective can describe a sight, a sound, a smell, a taste, or how something feels, but whatever is being described MUST BE A NOUN.
How many adjectives are in this sentence? How many nouns are being described?
The chatty, excited students waited for the new teacher to enter the colorful, decorated classroom.

16. Adverbs A word that describes a verb.
It gives more detail about how something is done.
The student walked quickly down the hall.
The student walked slowly down the hall.
The student walked excitedly down the hall.
In all 3 sentences, the underlined word describes how the student walked.

17. Prepositions
A preposition is a word that shows a relationship between a noun (or pronoun) and another word in the sentence.
Prepositions can show where something is located.
My book is under the papers.
The word under describes where the book is in relation to the papers.

18. Frequently Used Prepositions
Prepositions can also show time relationships.
I went to the store before dinner.
The preposition before describes the time relationship between going to the store and dinner.
Frequently Used Prepositions
Time: before, after, during, since, at, until
Location: in, on, out, under, over, above, around, into, to, with, without, against, through, for, beside, from, across, between, along, by, near, toward

19. Rewrite each of the following sentences on your packet and label nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and prepositions.
Joey has a pet duck and chicken. Phoebe sits on the couch with her guitar. She slowly plays the song she calls “Smelly Cat.” Friends is Frau’s favorite TV show.

20. Answers
Joey has a pet duck and chicken. Phoebe sits on the couch with her guitar.
adjective
verb
noun
noun
noun
verb
prep.
noun
prep.
noun
noun

21. Answers
adverb
She slowly plays the song she calls “Smelly Cat.” Friends is Frau’s favorite TV show.
noun
noun
adjective
pronoun
pronoun
verb
verb
verb
adjective
noun
(proper)
noun
(proper)
noun