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German Basics Textbook

A free, self-paced textbook in 8 chapters. Read a chapter, then drill it with the 100 companion flashcards using spaced repetition.

8 chapters · 100 cards · Updated

Chapters

  1. 1Greetings, Courtesies, and First Conversations

    Every German conversation begins with a greeting, and choosing the right one depends on both the time of day and how formal you want to be. "Guten Morgen" is used in the morning, "...

  2. 2Numbers and Counting

    Learning to count in German is straightforward for the small numbers. The cardinal numbers begin with eins (one), zwei (two), drei (three), and you will quickly encounter sieben (s...

  3. 3Nouns, Gender, and Articles

    Every German noun belongs to one of three grammatical genders: masculine, feminine, or neuter. The definite article reflects this gender: "der" for masculine nouns, "die" for femin...

  4. 4Verbs: Conjugation and Negation

    The two most essential German verbs are "sein" (to be) and "haben" (to have), and both are irregular. In the present tense, "sein" conjugates as ich bin, du bist, er/sie/es ist, th...

  5. 5Grammatical Cases and Prepositions

    German has four grammatical cases that determine the role of nouns and the form of their articles. The Nominativ identifies the subject of a sentence. The Akkusativ marks the direc...

  6. 6Modal Verbs and Sentence Structure

    Modal verbs are auxiliary verbs that express ability, necessity, desire, obligation, or permission, and German has six of them to learn. "Können" means can or to be able to; "müsse...

  7. 7Practical Situations: Food and Travel

    When eating out or shopping for groceries, a small base of food vocabulary will serve you well. Basic staples include das Brot (bread), das Wasser (water), die Milch (milk), der Kä...

  8. 8Past Tense, Formality, and Tricky Vocabulary

    To express ongoing action, German uses simple present-tense constructions such as "Ich lerne Deutsch" (I am learning German), which can describe a current activity just as in Engli...

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