Terminology A- Z

Chemists talk about organic compounds and solvents, physicists about particles and dark matter, biologists about invertebrates and amphibians. So it is no wonder that language teachers have a certain terminology as well that helps them to talk about their subject matter.

Therefore it is important to familiarise yourself with the basic terms which will help you to understand the nuts and bolts of the German language.

All the underlined words are explained somewhere else in this alphabetical list.

accusative case		See section "cases."
adjectives		An adjective describes a noun or a pronoun, e.g. tired, funny, expensive, interesting, blond, friendly, quick, blue. He is tired. This is a funny story. The house is very expensive.
adverbs		Adverbs give more information (how?/when?/where?) about a verb. You should drive slowly. I will see him soon. My bike is over there.
articles		We differentiate between indefinite articles and definite articles. If you say "yesterday a man rang my door bell", you have not defined the man yet, so you use the indefinite article "a" [or "an"]. If you go on to say "the man wanted to sell me some candles", you are defining the man in some way by giving further information about him; therefore you use the definite article "the".
cardinal numbers		Cardinal numbers are simple numbers, e.g. one, two, three, four, five, six. She has four brothers. He was born sixty years ago. The book costs twenty euros.
cases		In German, there are four cases. In section A1 Lower, you will only come across two of them: the nominative case and the accusative case. A case tells you something about the role played by a noun or a personal pronoun in a sentence. Just like an actor in a drama, a noun or a personal pronoun can play different roles in a sentence. It can play the subject of a sentence, and then it has to be in the nominative case. It can play the direct object of a sentence, and then it has to be in the accusative case. In English, the 2 different cases only become apparent when you use a pronoun, e.g. "my uncle" as a pronoun playing the role of the subject: He lives in Berlin. "my uncle" as a pronoun playing the role of the direct object: I am going to visit him in July. "hoover" playing the role of the subject: Last night the hoover broke down. "hoover" playing the role of the direct object: Tomorrow she is going to repair the hoover. But in German, the case is also indicated by the articles that accompany the noun, e.g. Der Rucksack ist praktisch. (The rucksack is practical.) Ich kaufe den Rucksack. (I buy the rucksack.) Ein Helm kostet 60 Euro. (A helmet costs 60 euros.) Sie braucht einen Helm. (She needs a helmet.)
clauses		See section "phrases, clauses & sentences"
compound nouns		Compound nouns are nouns that consist of two or more individual words. They are written as one word. Rotwein = red wine Tomatensalat = tomato salad
conjugation of verbs [to conjugate a verb]		Verb conjugation is the process of changing a verb to indicate who is performing the action expressed by the verb and when this actions takes place, e.g. I live in Dublin. She lives in Dublin. I lived in Dublin. He has lived in Dublin for many years.
conjunctions		Conjunctions are words like “and”, “because”, “then” or “therefore” etc., which link words, phrases, clauses or sentences. For twenty years she lived in a small town in the south of Germany but then she moved to Hamburg. He began taking Turkish classes because his mother is from Turkey.
definite article		See section "articles".
direct objects		The direct object is the noun or pronoun that is directly affected by the action in the sentence. How do you determine the direct object? step 1: Locate the verb(s) step 2: Locate the subject (= who or what performs the action expressed by the verb) step 3: Ask the following question: The subject "does" : what? or whom? (not “to whom” or “for whom” or "when" or "where" or "where ... to" or "where ... from" or "how") e.g. She is reading a book at the moment. -> verb: is reading, subject: she -> She is reading "what?" - a book I’ll meet my friends from Italy at the weekend. -> verb: will meet, subject: I -> I will meet "whom?" - my friends Heinrich Böll received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1972. -> verb: received, subject: Heinrich Böll -> Heinrich Böll received "what?" -> the Nobel Prize He met her during rehearsals for a play. -> verb: met, subject: he -> He met "whom?" -> her
feminine		See section "gender".
gender		Gender is a grammatical system of classifying nouns. In German, there are three categories: masculine, feminine and neuter. The gender is not always determined by the natural sex of the person signified by the noun, which is why Mädchen (girl) can be neuter. Also, objects can be masculine or feminine. Thankfully, there are a number of guidelines which help you to predict the gender of a noun. Note : There is no gender distinction in the plural.
imperative		The imperative is used to express commands, instructions, requests, suggestions and warnings, e.g. Listen! Read the text! Be careful!
indefinite article		See section "articles".
infinitive		The infinitive is the basic form of the verb, the one you find in the dictionary, e.g. to go, to write, to learn, to sleep, to be.
masculine		See section "gender".
modal verbs		Modal verbs show the attitude of the subject towards the action in the sentence, e.g. the subject can, is able to, is supposed to, wants to or must do the action, e.g. action: to bake -> Michael can bake a pizza. We are supposed to bake a pizza. My friends would like to bake a pizza. She must bake a pizza. / She has to bake a pizza.
neuter		See section "gender".
nominative case		See section "cases."
nouns		A noun indicates a living creature (e.g. woman, child, cat, fish), a thing (e.g. table, brush, book, bag), a place (e.g. town, lake, mountain, island), an event (e.g. party, holidays, illness) or a concept (e.g. freedom, hate, peace, love). Nouns start with a capital letter which makes it easy to identify them. They also have a gender [masculine, feminine or neuter] and a number [singular or plural].
number		Number in a grammatical sense means that a word is either singular (one person, one thing, one place, one event etc.) or plural (more than one person, more than one thing, more than one place, more than one event etc.) singular: book plural: books
ordinal numbers		Ordinal numbers are numbers which express sequence, e.g. first, second, third. She is in her second semester. The library is on the third floor. St. Patrick's Day is on March seventeenth.
personal pronouns		Personal pronouns are used instead of a noun or a noun phrase. Instead of “Katrin” you can say “she”, instead of “the boring movie” you can say “it”, instead of "my friends" you can say "they". What time do they come home? Since when has she been living here? How long did it take?
phrases, clauses & sentences		A phrase is a group of words that belong together on the basis of their meaning, but they do not constitute a complete clause, e.g. in summer tomorrow evening my old bike the small house to learn German A clause is a group of words that contains at least a subject and a verb, e.g. We are working. He comes from Berlin. She is studying medicine in Munich. My friend and I are going to the disco tomorrow evening. A sentence can consist of one or more clauses, e.g. 1 clause, e.g. He is staying at home today. 2 clauses, e.g. He is staying at home today because he is tired. He is staying at home today but she goes dancing. The woman who lived next door had heard several shots.
possessive articles		Possessive articles tell you who owns something, or what something is related to: my, your, his, her, its, our, their. What is his name? She met her friends in front of the cinema. Our governments must take responsibility.
prepositions		Prepositions indicate position, direction, time or how something is done, e.g. in, at, under, on, about, next to, between, since, behind, for, with. I left the money on the table. Then we went to the cinema. She will be here in four hours. Wine is made from grapes.
present tense		You put verbs into the present tense to express: what is happening right now, e.g. You are just reading this sentence. a general truth, e.g. Berlin is the capital of Germany. a habitual action, e.g. She plays golf every weekend. In German, you can also use the present tense: to express what will happen in the future, as long as it is clear from the context that you are referring to the future. for actions that started in the past and are still going on, the key words are since, for or already.
sentences		See section "phrases, clauses & sentences"
subject		The subject is the noun or pronoun that performs the action expressed by the verb(s) in the sentence. The Arctic is melting much faster than expected. In the aftermath of the Fukushima disaster in 2011, the German government decided to shut down its nuclear power stations. Of course, I stayed away from them. Later on we went to the beach. Our washing machine broke down last night.
tenses		Tenses indicate the time in which an action is taking place, i.e. in the present: present tense -> She plays tennis. in the future: future tense -> She will play tennis in the past: simple past -> She played tennis. perfect tense -> She has played tennis. pluperfect or past perfect -> She had played tennis for a long time.
verbs		Verbs express an action, e.g. to go, to write, to travel, to read, to negotiate, to build, must, may. Sometimes with verbs like to stay, to believe or to be, this action is not a real activity. One clause can have more than one verb, e.g. She must go now.