German GrammarPod

Latest Episodes:

Word Order - Exceptions to the Standard Main Clause Jul 13, 2008

Show notes

Word order has a highly complex set of rules in any language. So many, that I'm not convinced anyone has ever managed to write them all down for any given language. For pretty well every rule there is an exception, and there are even exceptions to exceptions.
This podcast focuses on the most productive rules about exceptions to standard word order, the ones that have a big effect on sentence structure and apply to lots of sentences. It also gives suggestions about what approach to take if you want to be right all of the time instead of most of the time (plus a guide to the level of effort that could take), or what to do to be right enough of the time to be fully understood, without attempting perfection (learning the most productive rules). It also gives some further detail on how standard word order works.
To listen to the podcast on your computer, click here.

Word Order in a Standard Main Clause Apr 06, 2008

Show notes

German word order in a completely standard, neutral main clause is a follows:
* nominative subject,
* conjugated verb,
* accusative then dative pronoun,
* nouns with definite determiners, in the order dative, accusative
* most adverbials
* nicht – or other negation particles
* adverbials of manner
* nouns with indefinite determiners, in the order dative, accusative
* the complement, and finally
* any other verbs.
My podcast on German word order contains more information about what those terms mean, and also a more detailed version of word order. You can listen to the podcast directly on your computer by clicking here.

Your Recommendations Mar 22, 2008

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I've noticed that the blog post about everyone's recommendations for German learning resources on the Internet has slipped off the bottom of the first page of this blog. As I think it's the best and most important post on this blog, I'm putting a link to it in here.
If anyone knows any good German learning resources, it'd be great if you could add to it too.

February's podcast Feb 27, 2008

Show notes

Hi all,
It's my aim to put a podcast out every calendar month, but I won't be able to make it this month (February 2008). In part I've had a lot on (I'm getting married in May and the wedding's taking up a lot of my time), but in part the topic I've chosen has taken a lot more work that usual (even more work than the past tense podcasts). That's because the topic is word order, and it's one of the most complex grammar topics there is. I had no idea how much existing knowledge of some things you needed to understand others, before I started writing. Because I try and write my podcasts so that beginners can listen to them too, this has made it an extremely hard topic to approach.
I'm now on my third attempt to write the podcast - and I'm a lot happier with this attempt than I was with the first two, but unfortunately I still haven't managed to finish it. I've decided that instead of rushing and getting more stressed, I'm just going to turn this into March's podcast. I hope when I do manage to finish it, you'll all think it's been worth the wait.
Thanks for listening, everyone.
Laura

The Pluperfect Jan 27, 2008

Show notes

The pluperfect is the ich hatte es getan or I had done tense. You make the pluperfect in German by taking the perfect tense (the ich habe es getan tense) and changing the auxiliary verb (the habe or the bin etc.) into the simple past version of itself (hatte or war etc.). So instead of ich habe ein Eis gegessen – I have eaten an ice cream you get ich hatte ein Eis gegessen – I had eaten an ice cream. And instead of ich bin im Ozean geschwommen – I have swum in the ocean you get ich war im Ozean geschwommen – I had swum in the ocean.
Basically, where you would use the pluperfect in English, you also use it in German. There's one exception to this though. Where you are referring to a situation that started in the distant past, but which is still ongoing at a point in the nearer past that you are talking about, although you'd use the pluperfect in English, in German you'd use the simple past. For instance: Since I had lived in Munich, I had been visiting him every Saturday = Seitdem ich in München wohnte, besuchte ich ihn jeden Samstag.
To listen to this podcast on your computer, click here.

Names for the Past Tenses Jan 13, 2008

Show notes

I've recently had an email from Jim who mentions that there are a lot of names for the German past tenses in both English and German, which makes it confusing. So I've decided to give you a table showing all the different names I've been able to find for the different past tenses. I've highlighted the name I use in the podcasts for each tense by making it bold and I've put an example of the past tense type described in each column at the top. I've tried to group names that seem to relate to each other together, but not everyone will favour three names in any one line or use the translations that are near each other.
Also, I just want to point out that in Latin, the perfect tense refers to actions that have completed (are perfect) by the time of speaking and the imperfect tense refers to actions that have not yet completed or are repeated or continuous (are imperfect) - which is where the names come from. But this doesn't apply to German, which can make using these names for the tenses confusing (particularly for anyone with a background in Latin grammar) and is one reason I decided not to refer to the ich tat es tense as the imperfect tense in my podcasts.
Unfortunately, having written all that, it turns out that you can't put tables in this blog (or at least not by any method I can work out), so here's a link to the table on my grammar and tables website.

The Simple Past Dec 31, 2007

Show notes

The simple past - also known as the preterite or the imperfect tense - is equivalent in form to the English I did form (ich tat es). The way that regular verbs form their simple past is by a or being inserted into the present tense ending. For instance ich kaufe - I buy becomes ich kaufte - I bought and du kaufst - you buy becomes du kauftest - you bought.
The German simple past is mainly used in written German, where it can express most past tenses expressed in English by either the I have done or the I did forms. It also crops up in spoken German, where it is preferred over the perfect tense for the auxiliary verbs (particularly haben and sein) and the modal verbs (müssen, sollen, mögen, können, dürfen, wollen) and also - in Central and Northern Germany - for some other common verbs.
To listen to my podcast on your computer, click here.

When to Use the Perfect Tense Nov 24, 2007

Show notes

This podcast is about when to use the perfect tense. The perfect tense is the ich habe es getan tense and corresponds in form to the I have done it tense in English. But the rules on when you use the tense are rather different in German. The German one is often interchangeable with the simple past tense (the ich tat es tense), whereas in English, past tenses are usually not interchangeable with each other.
As a rule of thumb, Germans use the perfect tense to express the past tense in spoken German, except with certain verbs and except in certain situations. The verbs with which the perfect tense is usually not used (apart from for situations for which the perfect tense is the preferred tense) are the auxiliary verbs, modal verbs and, in Central and Northern Germany, also certain other common verbs. These are used in the simple past instead.
If you'd like to listen to this podcast on your computer, you can do so by clicking here.
I've put a list of which verbs aren't generally used in the perfect tense on my geocities site, where I put grammar tables and transcripts of the episodes: http://sites.google.com/site/germangrammarpod/past . The website also includes a table showing the information I've given in my podcasts so far about when to use which tense.
It's always tricky to describe when a tense should be used in a foreign language, and there's a lot of seemingly contradictory information out there. To compile this episode, I mainly used German-language Wikipedia:
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfekt and
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pr%C3%A4teritum
which, slightly disturbingly, both seem to have been rewritten since I used them for information (although a native speaker did recommend the sites at the time I used them, so at least one native speaker did think they were supplying correct information as they were).
I also used the book Hammer's German Grammar and Usage (in my case the second edition). Here's a link to the fourth edition on Amazon: Hammer Grammar, although I recommend any edition of it that you can get your hands on.
I also liked the information in about.com on this topic: http://german.about.com/library/verbs/blverb_past.htm

Past Tenses: How to Use The Perfect Oct 22, 2007

Show notes

The perfect tense is one of three German past tense forms. It's also the one that's most commonly used in spoken German, so very useful to learn. The perfect tense is a compound tense. This means it uses two verbs: an auxiliary (or helper) verb and a main verb. Most of the time, the auxiliary verb is haben, which means to have. But for some verbs, especially intransitive verbs of motion and intransitive change-of-state verbs, the auxiliary verb is sein, which means to be. The main verb then shoots along to the end of the clause and appears in the form of a past participle. As a rule of thumb, you create the past participle of a verb from its infinitive by adding a ge- on the beginning, and sometimes you switch the or the on the end for a . Two examples of how you make a perfect tense sentence are:
Ich habe ein Eis gegessen - I have eaten an ice cream
Ich bin in die Schule gegangen - I've gone to school
You can listen to this podcast directly on your computer by clicking here.
While I was researching this podcast, I found a couple of particularly useful websites. Here are the English ones:
A description of when to use the different German past tenses:
http://german.about.com/library/verbs/blverb_past.htm
A description of how to use the German perfect tense:
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/German_Grammar:Verbs:Past_Tenses:Perfect_Tense
Exercises (particularly suitable for beginners) to practise using the perfect tense:
http://atschool.eduweb.co.uk/rgshiwyc/school/curric/German/Revision/German_Perfect_Tense/index.htm

And here are the German ones (two descriptions of when Germans say you should use the perfect tense and when the simple past (also known as the imperfect tense or the preterite)):
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pr%C3%A4teritum
http://home.schule.at/cometo/latein-griechisch/grammatikmerkblaetter/perfektimperfektverwendung.htm

The future tense & the verb werden Sep 30, 2007

Show notes

Hallo all,
It's been longer than I intended yet again, but I've finally managed to finish another episode of German GrammarPod. This episode is about the future tense and also about the verb werden in general.
The future tense is pretty simple in German. Most of the time you can just use the present tense form. But where this would be ambiguous, you add the verb werden (conjugated into one of its present tense forms) in the same way English adds the verb will to make the future tense.
Werden also has another couple of important uses. When used as a main verb instead of an auxiliary verb, then it means to become or a related verb. It also has another use as an auxiliary verb: instead of the future, it can be used to create the passive.
Whether it's being used to form the future or the passive can be seen from the form of the main verb that's used with it. When it's used to mean the future, then the main verb will be in the infinitive. If it's a passive, then the main verb will be in the form of a past participle.
To listen to the podcast directly on your computer, click here.

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