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LANGUAGE

From written signs to everyday conversation.

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GERMAN / EVERYDAY SURVIVAL · MUNICH

Deutsch

Understand the reply. Order what you need.
Get around Munich and beyond.

GERMAN / GRAMMAR REFERENCE

Forms, rules & structure

Standard German. Spoken regional varieties may use different vocabulary and past-tense preferences.

11 chapters
Grammar terminology
Noun
A word used to name or classify an entity: person, place, object, substance, idea.
Adjective
A word that describes a property; its form and position depend on the language.
Pronoun
A form used to refer to a participant or entity without repeating a full noun phrase.
Determiner
A word such as an article, demonstrative or possessive that helps specify a noun phrase.
Verb
A word heading a predicate, often describing an action, event or state.
Conjugation
A pattern of verb forms expressing grammatical distinctions such as person, tense or mood.
Declension
A pattern of noun, pronoun or adjective forms, often marking case, number and gender.
Case
A distinction marking a noun phrase’s grammatical role or its relationship to a governing word.
Gender
A grammatical classification of nouns; it need not match sex or have a transparent meaning.
Agreement
A form changes to match features of another expression, such as person, number, gender or case.
Tense
A grammatical way of locating a situation relative to a time of reference.
Aspect
How a situation is viewed: for example ongoing, habitual, completed or prior to a reference point.
Mood
A grammatical distinction associated with assertion, possibility, commands, wishes or other clause functions.
Finite form
A verb form that can serve as a clause’s main inflected verb, contrasting with infinitives and participles. The precise criteria vary by language.
Participle
A verb-derived form used in constructions such as modifiers, compound tenses or passives; its roles vary by language.
Infinitive
A nonfinite verb form in languages that have one; it is not automatically equivalent to English “to + verb”.
Subject / object
Grammatical relations in a clause, not universal synonyms for “doer” and “receiver”.
Clitic
A short grammatical form that depends phonologically on a neighboring word.
Transitive
Describes a verb construction that takes a direct object.
Register
A variety of expression associated with context, relationship or level of formality.
RULES & PATTERNS

Nouns, gender & plural

  1. Every noun has masculine, feminine or neuter grammatical gender; learn its definite article and plural with it. Capitalize nouns.
  2. Plural is lexical: -e, -(e)n, -er, -s or no suffix occur, sometimes with umlaut. Gender is not a reliable prediction of a person’s sex or a thing’s properties.
Nouns, gender & plural · reference forms
GenderSingularPlural
masculineder Tischdie Tische
femininedie Fraudie Frauen
neuterdas Kinddie Kinder
umlaut + suffixdas Buchdie Bücher
no suffixder Lehrerdie Lehrer
Worked examples

Das Mädchen liest ein Buch.

The girl is reading a book.

How it works: Mädchen is grammatically neuter because -chen diminutives are neuter.

These chapters give core rules and representative paradigms. A model table applies to the stated class; irregular words and more specialized constructions need their own entries.

Further reference
Revised 2026-09-14
Practice scores last for this visit.German audio is unavailable on this device. All exercises work without audio.