Germany (Deutsch) is the official language In Germany, In Switzerland, In Liechtenstein and In Austria and it is spoken by about 100 million native speakers. Especially in Europe, German is also widely taught as a foreign language at school.
Understand
Say it
Germany is written in the Latin alphabet, the specialty is familiar to Finnish and ä, and two letters that are not found in the Finnish alphabet:
ü = yß = ss
Vowels
- eu = oi
- ei = ai
- ie = ii
A / Ä
- short [a]
- long [aː]
- ä is pronounced [ɛ] or [ɛː]
E
- short [ɛ]
- long [ɛː]
- short [e]
- long [eː]
I
- short [ɪ]
- short [i]
- long [iː]
O / Ö
- short [ɔ] than Finnish o
- long [oː] than Finnish u
- short [œ] than Finnish ö
- long [øː] than Finnish y
U / Ü / Y
- short [ʊ]
- long [uː]
- short [ʏ]
- long [yː] than Finnish y
Er
The letter combination er is usually pronounced as a vowel [ɐ]
Consonants
Unlike in Finland, the double consonant is pronounced short. Otherwise, there is little difference in consonants compared to Finnish consonants. Exceptions:
- sch = ʃ
- er = ɐ
- ä = e
- v = f
- w = v
- b, d, g at the end of the word = p, t, k
- word end -ig = -ih
- at the beginning of the word sp-, st-, sk- = ʃp-, ʃt-, ʃk-
- ch = after a, o, u as in the Finnish word coffee, after letters other than words broom, lantern
- chs = ks
- Qu = kv
- h does not sound after the vowel; it shows that the vowel is pronounced long
- s is voiced in front of the vowel
Emphasis
Most often, the weight is in the first syllable of the word, the weight of the conjunction in the first conjunction.
- With prefixes ant-,et-, miss-, um-, ur- for starting denominations, the weight is prefixed.
- Prefixes be-, emp-, ent-, er-, ge-, ver-, zer- and in verbs miss-are weightless; the weight is in the syllable after them.
- In loanwords, weight is often in the final syllable.
Grammar
The grammar of German is a rather conservative Germanic language. For example, there are still three genera in Germany, in contrast to Sweden and the Netherlands, where masculine and feminine have merged, and England, where gender segregation has disappeared.
Word order
Nominit
Prohibition words
Verbit
- Staple: German Travel Dictionary / Verbs
Particles
Change
Use of Zu particle with infinitive
The particle 'zu' is used before the basic form of the verb, if the verb refers
- adjective,
- noun or
- to another verb that is not
- modal auxiliary verb,
- gehen (go),
- kommen (come),
- sehen (to see),
- hören (hear) or
- lassen (give, let, allow).
The infinitive expression with the zu particle is separated from the rest of the sentence by a comma.
- Ich versuche, Schneller zu Laufen. I try to run harder.
Travel Glossary
Learn more
- Deutsch.info - course A1-B2