The present perfect (das Perfekt) is the tense that you will hear a lot - especially in conversations - let’s call it “the conversational past. In English, you use the Present Perfect to express past events that have present implications. For those that don’t you use the Simple Past. Germans don’t draw a clear line between those two sometimes. So we should learn about it:

First of all, we need to know what “tools” we need to form the present perfect in German:

1. AN AUXILIARY VERB; conjugated in the present tense:

-> haben: For most of the verbs

ich habe; du hast; er/sie/es hat; wir haben; ihr habt; sie haben

-> sein: For the verbs that express some sort of movement

ich bin; du bist; er/sie/es ist; wir sind; ihr seid; sie sind

2. THE PAST PARTICIPLE

Examples: Ich habe eingekauft. Ich bin ins Kino gegangen.

Let’s learn more about the usage next time!

We now know how to form the plural of feminine, masculine and neuter nouns. CLICK 1; CLICK 2;

However, there are still some exceptions which I haven’t mentioned yet:

1. masculine and neuter nouns that end -el in the singular usually add nothing in the plural (except for der Muskel = muscle, der Pantoffel and der Stachel = sting -> add -n)

e.g. der Esel - die Esel

2. All nouns that are of foreign origin or end with a single vowel (except for -e) add an -s in the plural:

e.g. das Hobby - die Hobbys

Last time, we learned about feminine nouns in the plural -> CLICK!

Now let’s concentrate on masculine and neuter nouns. Since that’s a little more complicated, I wanna divide it into two posts:

MASCULINE / NEUTER NOUNS:

Usually they end -e or -er. e.g. der Hund - die HundE; das Kind - die KindER

Many masculine nouns also add the Umlaut e.g. der Mann -> die MännER

And: nouns that have a singular vowel (a, u, o) or the diphthong <au> in their stem (au) also add the Umlaut. e.g. das Haus - die Häuser; der Baum - die Bäume

Today: FEMININE PLURAL NOUNS

They usually end -n or -en. e.g. die Frau - die FrauEN; die Biene - die BieneN

Nouns ending with -in add -nen e.g. die Freundin - die FreundinNEN

Some excepctions are: die Maus - die Mäuse; die Wurst - die Würste etc.

Do you wanna give it a try…

What’s the plural of the following nouns: die Gabel; die Katze; die Lehrerin; die Tür

…?

… and negate the following sentences…

Example: Er trinkt gern Kaffee. Sie trinkt nicht gern Kaffee.

1. Max mag Rockmusik. Tim ……….

2. Letzte Woche habe ich eine DVD gekauft. Du…………….

3. Tim geht heute Abend ins Kino. Ich ………………..

4. Morgen werden Steffi und Toni nach Berlin fahren. Ihre Freunde………..

5. Gestern kam Christian spät nach Hause. Seine Schwester

… ?

The negation “nicht” is positioned depending on the sentence elements. Let me give you a few rules for that today:

Nicht always follows:

- the conjugated verb

(e.g. Paula raucht nicht. Paula doesn’t smoke.)

- specific adverbs of time

(e.g. Paula arbeitet heute nicht. Paula is not working today.)

Nicht precedes most other elements:

- adjectives

(e.g. Paula ist nicht lustig. Paula isn’t funny.)

- most other adverbs

(e.g. Paula singt nicht gut. Paula doesn’t sing well.)

- infinitives

(e.g. Paula geht nicht schwimmen. Paula is not going swimming.)

This is about “interjections”. Inter-…who? What? Where? ;)…. Easier said: Exclamations! You need them to express an emotions like disgust, surprise, boredom, joy, excitement etc. Very often, you’d put them at the beginning of a sentence or as a pause. In written language, you wanna put a comma.

The little words are constantly used, so I’d like to share! Let’s start with ways to express disgust!

1. Pfui!

2. Igitt!

3. Iiiih!

4. Bäh!

I’d love to find out what you say when you find something disgusting!

Some more indefinite pronouns in German. Click here to view Part 1:

1. etwas = something

2. irgendetwas = something/anything

3. solche = such

4. jedermann = everyone

5. allesamt = all of

6. mancher (e,s) = some

7. seinesgleichen = the likes of him / one’s own kind

When you refer to objects, places or unspecified beings, you need indefinite pronouns (das Indefinitpronomen) like nobody, both, plenty or other to express yourself.

Some useful ones that you should know are:

1. jemand = somebody

2. niemand = nobody

3. irgendjemand / irgendwer = anybody

4. man = you (in the informal usage of “one”)

5. alle = all

6. beide = both

7. einige = several

8. wenige = few

What?! Past what?? ;) … Relax. It’s not as bad as it sounds:

You have the same thing in English to form past tenses like the present/past perfect or the passive voice. For example (to) write - written. “written” is the past participle of (to) write.

The following rule applies to German regular verbs:

ge- + 3rd person singular form of the verb. Examples:

spielen (to play), spielt (he/she/it plays) -> gespielt (played). Ich habe gespielt

lachen (to laugh), lacht (he/she/it laughs) -> gelacht (lauged). Ich habe gelacht.

Of course there are exeptions to the rule (e.g. irregular verbs). One frequently used irregular verb is: sein (to be) - gewesen (been). But there are many more of course. Here’s a list.