Quantum German

Here are some of my unusual ways of studying German! I hope this helps some of you out✨

I think part of this is because German windows are generally pretty well insulated and, not to drag my British friends, but their windows usually… aren’t. Not to a German standard, anyway. And I’ve also found that a lot of British people I’ve interacted with are a little… blasé about mould?

Like… I lived with an English family for a few months and they used a room to hang up their laundry to dry and never opened the window. The wall was so mouldy it was quite shocking. Whereas in Germany, we are a lot more conscious about the detrimental effects of mould on your health and so we try to avoid it at all costs by airing out rooms, especially in winter, so the moisture won’t get too high.

And yeah, in that houseshare I had to live in they never opened the windows when they were drying the washing and in the street I live in now, pretty much everyone dries their clothes with the windows closed. And I mean, UK flats are more susceptible to mould because - at least in the North - they combine reasonably airtight windows with uninsulated walls, which is why any water from your washing will condense on the walls (windows in the South tend to be still of the draughty kind, though). This actually caught me out when I moved here and wanted to air out the bathroom as I was used to from Germany - where you do it by opening all doors and windows and within minutes the bathroom is dry again. Only here, the walls are so cold due to the lack of insulation that the water from the hot humid air from the bathroom will condense on the cold walls in the other rooms faster than it can be carried out by the draught. So now I keep my bathroom door shut and all I can do is open the tiny bathroom window and wait for an age till it’s dry.

I don’t want to repeat what other people in the thread have said cause they have done a great job. 

The problem is that these countries have shit building codes that do not conform to any ISO or DIN standards. And these countries will not enforce any laws because they are already dealing with a housing crisis and overvaluation of property. You can see that in their windows, entry doors, insulation, waterproofing etc. Low cost entry into construction paired with high labour cost and cheap repurposed materials.

These countries have all the technology needed to switch from wood and gypsum based building to metal, concrete, mortar and brick construction, but they do not have the industries to support that change. And big companies who have made their hoarding through traditional means will lobby governments to not do so either. The US even lacks a good metal recycling industry because they just don’t reuse it enough. 

Only thing i would improve in European homes is add vents and better inside air circulation. But there is nothing to improve in American homes, they’re a literal fire hazard and should not be lived in. And even the floors that separate levels are unsafe and just made out of wood. Not to mention all the resins and glues that they use to make boards and shit to cover their homes from the outside constantly off gasses formaldehyde. And most of their 40′s 50′s houses have a shitton of led paint. 

Another thing is that a lot of western construction installs fixed windows, that’s what we call windows that wont open. This is out of sheer laziness and cost saving. While it was a lot more easier to install a fixed window, in the long term it will only cause more trouble than it is worth.

hey! i exercise today with some texts so there were some words that i did not know. i hope they’ll help you too! have a nice day! 

Hauptstadt (capital city)

Süden (south)

gefallen v. (to please)

weit (far)

weiter (further)

wahrscheinlich (probably)

verbringen (to spend)

insgesamt (altogether)

Teich (pool)

manchmal (sometimes)

leicht (light)

der Ausgang (exit)

schicken (send)

günstig (favourable)

besetzt (occupied)

anbieten (to offer)

die Miete (rent)

die Anzeige (ad)

das Konto (account)

das Gewich (weight)

related to past:

gestern - yesterday

vorgestern - the day before yesterday

vor kurzem, kürzlich - recently

neulich - recently

vorhin - just now

eben - just now

soeben - just now

in letzter zeit - lately

früher - earlier

damals - then, back then

vor - ago (vor goes before words like “week”, “year”, etc. “vor fünf Tagen” - five days ago. vor is used with dativ)

related to present:

heute - today

heutzutage - nowadays, these days

jetzt - now

nun - now

soeben - right now

gerade (also grade, colloquially) - right now

momentan - currently

related to future:

morgen - tomorrow

übermorgen - the day after tomorrow

gleich - immediately

sofort - immediately

bald - soon

später - later

demnächst - soon

jemals - ever

irgendwann einmal - at some point in the future, someday (both words can also be used separately with the same meaning)

28.10.2019

What are cases?

A case shows the function of a noun or a pronoun in a sentence. In many languages, words change their form or add different endings according to their function in a sentence. For example, they change depending on whether the word is the subject or the object of the sentence. These changes and different endings are called ‘cases’. 

The German language has four cases:

Nominative (Nominativ)

Accusative (Akkusativ)

Dative (Dativ)

Genitive (Genitiv)

These cases are very important in German grammar as they dictate the endings of adjectives and indefinite articles. They can also tell you which personal pronoun to use.

1. The Nominative Case

This case tells us who or what is doing something. The subject might be performing a certain action or have a certain characteristic. In German, the easiest way to tell the Nominative from other cases is to ask “Who or what is doing XYZ?”

Therefore, the nominative is known as the Wer-Fall (the who-case).

For example:

Wer lacht? (who is laughing?) → Das Mädchen lacht. (The girl is laughing.)

Was ist bunt? (What is colorful?) → Das Haus ist bunt. (The house is colorful.)

Wer bellt die Frau an? (Who barks at the woman?) → Der Hund bellt die Frau an. (The dog barks at the woman.)

There are certain verbs in German that only take nominative form. Some of them are sein (to be), werden (to become) and bleiben (to stay)

2. The Accusative Case

Similarly to the nominative, the accusative’s operative question is also “what?” There is, however, a major difference between the two. In the case of the accusative, the person (or animal, or object) you are talking about is affected by the action. This is called the direct object.

Er schreibt Bücher. (He writes books.) ← What does he write?

Sie haben die Kirschen gegessen. (They have eaten the cherries.) ← What have they eaten?

Sie hat ein Bild gemalt. (She painted a picture.) ← What did she paint?

3. The Dative Case

This case is all about the indirect object. The indirect object is an object that is being passively influenced by whatever action is taking place.

Er schenkt seiner Freundin Blumen. (He gives his girlfriend flowers.)

“He” is the subject of the sentence.

The verb (obviously) is “to give”.

The direct object is the flowers that are given.

And then there’s his girlfriend: She’s really just there passively receiving the gift—she is the indirect object of the sentence.

Same with this example here:

Ich gab ihm den Schlüssel. (I gave him the key.)

In this case, “I” is the subject of the sentence, whereas “the key” is the direct object. The verb here is “to give” as well, and the indirect object is “he” who I gave the keys to.

When there’s a dative involved, you’ll always have to ask yourself “Who to?” or “Who for?”, or also “Whom?”. These three questions are indicative of the dative case.

4. The Genitive Case

Its main function is to show possession similar to the English ’s or the preposition of. The operative word here is “Whose?” So whenever you see a sentence like:

Die Jacke des Mannes ist schwarz. (The man’s jacket is black.)

The special thing about the genitive is that when it’s applied, the endings of certain nouns (namely masculine nouns and neuter ones) change.

Examples:

Der Hund → des Hundes

“Das Fell des Hundes ist schwarz.” (The dog’s fur is black.) ← Whose fur is black?

When a sentence is in the genitive case, the letters –es are added to some words, especially those that have only one syllable and end in a consonant.

Das Blatt → des Blattes (the leaf vs. the leaf’s)

Der Mann → des Mannes (the man vs. the man’s)

If a word ends in –en, –el or –er, usually only an –s is added. This happens especially in masculine nouns or those that are neuter.

Examples:

Das Kaninchen → des Kaninchens (the bunny vs. the bunny’s)

Der Leiter → des Leiters (the leader vs. the leader’s)

Der Beutel → des Beutels (the tote vs. the tote’s)

To understand prepositions, we first have to understand the different noun cases in German. I have a made a previous post about it which you can find here.

Once you have a good understanding of how the cases work, German prepositions are pretty easy to learn. There are three prepositional cases: the accusative, the dative, and the genitive. There is also a group of prepositions that can take on either the accusative or dative case, depending on the meaning of the sentence.

German Prepositions in the Accusative

When you encounter these German prepositions, you can be sure the nouns and pronouns following will always be in the accusative.

bis (until, up to, as far as)

durch (through, by means of)

für (for)

ohne (without)

gegen (against)

um (around, at [a certain] time, for)

entlang (along, it usually goes after the object)

Examples:

Sie arbeitet für ein Unternehmen in Berlin. (She works for a company in Berlin.)

Wir gehen durch den Wald. (We’re walking through the forest.) 

Wir treffen uns um acht Uhr. (We meet at eight o’clock.)

Sie liefen an der Straße entlang. (They walked along the road.) 

Deutschland spielt heute gegen Mexiko. (Germany is playing against Mexico today.)

Der Zug fährt bis Tübingen. (The train goes to Tübingen.)

German Prepositions in the Dative

All of the words listed below will give you a hint that whatever noun or pronoun follows, it’s going to be in the dative case.

aus (out of)

außer (except for)

gegenüber (opposite of, toward someone, across from)

bei (at)

mit (with)

nach (after, to, according to someone/something)

seit (since, for—only used for statements related to time or amounts of time)

zu (to)

von (from)

Examples:

Sie sitzt mir gegenüber. (She’s sitting opposite to me.) → You can see here that the word “mich” (me) shifts to its dative form: mir.

Nach dem Unterricht gehen wir in ein Café. (After class we’re going to a café.)

Seit seiner Scheidung lebt er allein. (He lives alone since his divorce.) → Since this is a preposition in the dative, the word “seine” (a possessive pronoun) shifts to “seiner”.

Ich habe außer einer Jacke nichts gekauft. (I didn’t buy anything except for a jacket.)

Sie kommt aus der Schweiz. (She is from Switzerland.)

Ich fahre mit meiner Schwester nach Florenz. (I’m going to Florence with my sister.)

Ich wohne bei meiner Tante. (I’m living with my aunt.)

German Prepositions in the Genitive

A few German prepositions are governed by the genitive case. That is, they take an object in the genitive case.

anstatt/statt (instead [of]) 

während (during)

trotz (despite)

wegen (because of)

außerhalb (outside of)

innerhalb (inside of)

oberhalb (above)

unterhalb (below)

diesseits (on this side)

jenseits (on the other side)

beiderseits (on both sides)

NOTE: While you can informally use the dative when using prepositions like “während” or “statt”, the prepositions außerhalb, innerhalb, oberhalb and unterhalb must be used with the genitive. Same or diesseits, jenseits, and beiderseits!

Examples:

Die Bäckerei ist wegen Urlaubs geschlossen. (The bakery is closed due to vacation.) → Since the preposition is in the genitive, the word “Urlaub” (vacation) shifts to its genitive form (“Urlaubs”).

Seine Wohnung liegt außerhalb des Stadtkerns. (His apartment is located outside of the city center.)

Ich ging trotz einer Erkältung zur Arbeit. (I went to work despite my cold.)

Es kam innerhalb der Partei zu Spannungen. (There were tensions within the party.)

Two-way German Prepositions

Pronouns and nouns following the words listed below are either going to be in the dative or in the accusative. But how do you know whether the dative or the accusative is used? 

It is pretty easy: Every time there is motion involved (especially when talking about a specific location), the preposition is in the accusative.

If there’s no motion involved, or the motion involved has no specific goal or place it’s going to, or if you’re talking about a location, you’re using the dative.

You can distinguish the two by looking at the interrogative particle. In case of an accusative, you’re asking “wohin?” (meaning: where to?) when inquiring about the situation.

Two sets of examples showing motion versus location:

Accusative: Wir gehen ins Kino. (We’re going to the movies.) There is a movement toward a destination – in this case, the movie theater. Dative: Wir sind im Kino. (We’re at the movies/cinema.) We are already at the movie theater; not traveling toward it. Accusative: Legen Sie das Buch auf den Tisch. (Put/Lay the book on the table.) The motion is the placement of the book toward the table. Dative: Das Buch liegt auf dem Tisch. (The book’s lying on the table.) The book is already at its destination and not moving.

an (at, by, on)

auf (on, onto)

hinter (behind)

neben (beside, near, next to)

in (in, into, to)

über (over [above], about, across)

unter (under, below)

zwischen (between)

Note: Some prepositions and articles are contracted, something like this.

What does it mean to make progress in a language?

In this video I talk about the differences between “measured” and “felt” progress in a language, both of which have their benefits. Plus, I spill the tea on a language proficiency exam I took online for German.