Grammar Resources.
Rechtschreiben!
The structure of any language makes it special and unique. Native speakers don't really consider how their language is put together because it has been imprinted on our memory cells since infancy. Linguists believe that humans are "hard-wired" for language, a trait that sets us apart from other life-forms. We like to talk.
Babies respond to the expressions on our faces and imitate the movements of our lips. They love to babble and quickly pick up sounds. Notice what words infants learn immediately. Nouns! They like to name things, but they have a lot of difficulty with putting words into recognizable structures. It's a fairly laborious and difficult endeavour, but they have an incredible working vocabulary before they ever enter a school setting.
Students continue to struggle with structure thoroughout the formative years. Writing anxiety results from our lack of confidence in expressing ourselves using the proper structure of our native languages. Most native speakers of any language don't understand how grammar works or what the grammar lingo means. It's only when we begin to study a second language that we are forced to analyze the structure of language.
The Grammar Resource page will help you construct the grammar of German. Imagine that a language is created from layers of information — sound, words, form, and meaning. The first layer is the individual sound. The second layer is a combination of sounds to make words. The third layer is the form that the words take to create the fourth layer of meaning.
Now imagine that the form is created from blocks of words, or as Michael Lewis calls them, chunks of meaning. I mentioned that infants learn the names of things first. This block or chunk of sound, usually a noun, gives the sentence a concrete idea, a reference for the reader or listener. The second block indicates an action or an idea of what the thing, the first block, does. These are the essential blocks of a sentence — I am. What a profound meaning from such a simple combination of sound and words!
English, which is in the Germanic family, adds a third important block of meaning that is very prevalent in the sentence structure — the receiver of the action or idea. Most verbs in English are transitive, i.e. the verb transfers the action from the doer to the receiver, the doer being the subject and the receiver being the object. German does the same thing, but whereas English indicates this transfer through word order, German indicates it through a spelling change of the article or adjective, hence, the case system.
Two cases are described in the Grammar Resource site. You can visit pages about the Accusative Case or the Dative Case by clicking the links. Both cases are actually quite logical if you allow your mind to see the patterns in the system I've described. The case system is also quite useful because it gives a lot of flexibility to the syntax, or word order, of the German sentence.
A funny example of how this works uses my favorite pet, the dog. In English, one says, "I feed the dog." One cannot change the word order because then you have the dog feeding the subject, "The dog feeds I (me)." Now some pets may be that talented, but my dogs would much rather be fed than try to feed themselves. In German, however, word order is not a problem because the article, "the" (der), changes form to indicate that the dog has all the luck. He gets fed no matter where he moves, so you can say, "Ich fresse den Hund," or "Den Hund fresse ich," and there's no misunderstanding because the "der" (masculine article for Hund as a subject) changes to "den" (masculine article for Hund as an object).
So.... In order to learn German grammar, you have to have a sense of humor and an open mind! As time permits, I will continue to populate the Grammar Resources pages with useful information. Your contributions are also welcome.
FB 02/04/04
*This is the first step toward THE One World Language.
Step Fourteen: *Your passive voice becomes an endless echo!
Planet Deutsch is ruled by Planetary WebMistress Frau Freddie Bowles, an instructor of German language and English as a Second Language at the University of Central Arkansas. An independent entity in the CornDancer consortium of planets, Planet Deutsch is dedicated to the study and exploration of the German language and culture. CornDancer is a developmental website for the mind and spirit maintained by the circle of sharers at Cricket Song, a haven of goodwill on the Planet Earth. Submissions are invited.
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