I am teaching myself german. I started about 2 weeks ago, just basically memorizing a shitload of words and understanding some basics. Verbs I find very difficult though. Is there one universal law that i can apply? I know about the e, t, st, en endings in present tense, but a lot of the other tenses seem to vary from the original verb, and it's hard to keep track. Can someone just give me or link me to a site where i can see how to properly conjugate the other tenses?

Another thing I find confusing is the die/das/der when describing objects. How do you know which to use?? In french, it's easier because you can tell by the last letter of the word

You just picked the most difficult language grammarwise in the world to learn. They are called Nahmfalle and there are 4 of them that are important for you to know around this time.

Der/Die/Das are all translations of "the" and are pointers to gender.

Der = Male "Männlich"
Die = Female "Weiblich"
Das = Genderless "Unseitig"

Der Mann, Ein Mann, Zwei Männer
Die Frau, Eine Frau, Zwei Frauen
Das Ziel, Ein Ziel, Zwei Zielen

Dass (or daß) is not the same as "das". Das = the and Dass = that.

Das Ziel = The Target
Dass Ziel = That Target

Dies = This, gets aditional endings. Dieses Boot (This boat)

Determining gender is done pretty much the same way as in English, although it does little to change the sentence grammarwise in English. Men are Male, Women are Female, that much is clear.

For the rest:

Male = Anything concrete and "touchable"
Female = Anything given a name or abstract, police, love, church, etc.
Genderless = Anything that can be either one of both but remains undetermined by the word alone. Ziel is a good example. A Target can be something very concrete, something you shoot at. But it can be a goal you wish to achieve as well, something very abstract. A word that summarises objects under a category are Genderless as well. Gewehr, Boot, Haus (Gun, Boat, House)

You have 1 House (Das Haus) now make it two and it becomes Die Häuser. Das changes into Die. Der and Die do the same. Der changes into Die and Die remains Die.

Der Mann, Die Männer
Die Frau, Die Frauen
Das Ziel, Die Zielen
----------------------------

Laufen (Walking)

ich laufe
du laufst
er läuft
es läuft
sie läuft
wir laufen

a/ä wechslung (a changes into ä after du)

(I walk, you walk, he walks, it walks, she walks, we walk)


Willen (Wanting)

ich will
du willst
er wollt
es wollt
sie wollt
wir wollen

i/o wechslung (i changed into o after du)

(I want, you want, he wants, it wants, she wants, we want)

oh, change me where I'm wrong. I'm sooooo lazy with grammar...

Thanks for taking the time to write that. It definitely helped me a lot. Are a/ä and i/o the only letters that are switched with verbs?

Genderless "Unseitig"

never heard of that, it´s called "sächlich".

and the word dass is a little bit more complex.

Letters tend to change a lot in German. There is also the e/i wechslung.

Werden (will or will become)

ich werde
du wirst
er wird
es wird
sie wird
wir werden

some more grammar:

du wirst (You as in speaking to a friend, spouse, children, etc)
ihr wird (You as in a group of people)
Sie werden (You when speaking to an adult, stranger, elderly, teacher, etc.)

A few sentences: (The * devides translated particles)

Ich * werde * Polizist.
I * will become * a police officer.

Du hast * es vergessen.
You have * forgotten it.

Sie haben * es vergessen.
You have * forgotten it. (notice that it = es. In German particle comes before the noun or verb is points to.)

You just picked the most difficult language grammarwise in the world to learn.


Good post and such, but note: Slavic languages are more difficult than German grammatically. Anyways, I'm glad to see you're using your knowledge to help people with German...that's in contrast to BSK, who just spams and posts nonsense.

+1

that's in contrast to BSK, who just spams and posts nonsense.

Er kann mich am Arsch lecken...

he has been told so many times that he´s on my ignore list and he keeps replying to me.

but I´m sorry that I had to correct you on such a simple thing like gender ..