Word Order in a Standard Main Clause

German word order in a completely standard, neutral main clause is a follows:

* nominative subject,
* conjugated verb,
* accusative then dative pronoun,
* nouns with definite determiners, in the order dative, accusative
* most adverbials
* nicht – or other negation particles
* adverbials of manner
* nouns with indefinite determiners, in the order dative, accusative
* the complement, and finally
* any other verbs.

My podcast on German word order contains more information about what those terms mean, and also a more detailed version of word order. You can listen to the podcast directly on your computer by clicking here.

Your Recommendations

I've noticed that the blog post about everyone's recommendations for German learning resources on the Internet has slipped off the bottom of the first page of this blog. As I think it's the best and most important post on this blog, I'm putting a link to it in here.

If anyone knows any good German learning resources, it'd be great if you could add to it too.

February's podcast

Hi all,

It's my aim to put a podcast out every calendar month, but I won't be able to make it this month (February 2008). In part I've had a lot on (I'm getting married in May and the wedding's taking up a lot of my time), but in part the topic I've chosen has taken a lot more work that usual (even more work than the past tense podcasts). That's because the topic is word order, and it's one of the most complex grammar topics there is. I had no idea how much existing knowledge of some things you needed to understand others, before I started writing. Because I try and write my podcasts so that beginners can listen to them too, this has made it an extremely hard topic to approach.

I'm now on my third attempt to write the podcast - and I'm a lot happier with this attempt than I was with the first two, but unfortunately I still haven't managed to finish it. I've decided that instead of rushing and getting more stressed, I'm just going to turn this into March's podcast. I hope when I do manage to finish it, you'll all think it's been worth the wait.

Thanks for listening, everyone.

Laura

The Pluperfect

The pluperfect is the ich hatte es getan or I had done tense. You make the pluperfect in German by taking the perfect tense (the ich habe es getan tense) and changing the auxiliary verb (the habe or the bin etc.) into the simple past version of itself (hatte or war etc.). So instead of ich habe ein Eis gegessen – I have eaten an ice cream you get ich hatte ein Eis gegessen – I had eaten an ice cream. And instead of ich bin im Ozean geschwommen – I have swum in the ocean you get ich war im Ozean geschwommen – I had swum in the ocean.

Basically, where you would use the pluperfect in English, you also use it in German. There's one exception to this though. Where you are referring to a situation that started in the distant past, but which is still ongoing at a point in the nearer past that you are talking about, although you'd use the pluperfect in English, in German you'd use the simple past. For instance: Since I had lived in Munich, I had been visiting him every Saturday = Seitdem ich in München wohnte, besuchte ich ihn jeden Samstag.

To listen to this podcast on your computer, click here.

Names for the Past Tenses

I've recently had an email from Jim who mentions that there are a lot of names for the German past tenses in both English and German, which makes it confusing. So I've decided to give you a table showing all the different names I've been able to find for the different past tenses. I've highlighted the name I use in the podcasts for each tense by making it bold and I've put an example of the past tense type described in each column at the top. I've tried to group names that seem to relate to each other together, but not everyone will favour three names in any one line or use the translations that are near each other.

Also, I just want to point out that in Latin, the perfect tense refers to actions that have completed (are perfect) by the time of speaking and the imperfect tense refers to actions that have not yet completed or are repeated or continuous (are imperfect) - which is where the names come from. But this doesn't apply to German, which can make using these names for the tenses confusing (particularly for anyone with a background in Latin grammar) and is one reason I decided not to refer to the ich tat es tense as the imperfect tense in my podcasts.

Unfortunately, having written all that, it turns out that you can't put tables in this blog (or at least not by any method I can work out), so here's a link to the table on my grammar and tables website.

The Simple Past

The simple past - also known as the preterite or the imperfect tense - is equivalent in form to the English I did form (ich tat es). The way that regular verbs form their simple past is by a or being inserted into the present tense ending. For instance ich kaufe - I buy becomes ich kaufte - I bought and du kaufst - you buy becomes du kauftest - you bought.

The German simple past is mainly used in written German, where it can express most past tenses expressed in English by either the I have done or the I did forms. It also crops up in spoken German, where it is preferred over the perfect tense for the auxiliary verbs (particularly haben and sein) and the modal verbs (müssen, sollen, mögen, können, dürfen, wollen) and also - in Central and Northern Germany - for some other common verbs.

To listen to my podcast on your computer, click here.

When to Use the Perfect Tense

This podcast is about when to use the perfect tense. The perfect tense is the ich habe es getan tense and corresponds in form to the I have done it tense in English. But the rules on when you use the tense are rather different in German. The German one is often interchangeable with the simple past tense (the ich tat es tense), whereas in English, past tenses are usually not interchangeable with each other.

As a rule of thumb, Germans use the perfect tense to express the past tense in spoken German, except with certain verbs and except in certain situations. The verbs with which the perfect tense is usually not used (apart from for situations for which the perfect tense is the preferred tense) are the auxiliary verbs, modal verbs and, in Central and Northern Germany, also certain other common verbs. These are used in the simple past instead.

If you'd like to listen to this podcast on your computer, you can do so by clicking here.

I've put a list of which verbs aren't generally used in the perfect tense on my geocities site, where I put grammar tables and transcripts of the episodes: http://uk.geocities.com/germangrammarpod/past.html. The website also includes a table showing the information I've given in my podcasts so far about when to use which tense.

It's always tricky to describe when a tense should be used in a foreign language, and there's a lot of seemingly contradictory information out there. To compile this episode, I mainly used German-language Wikipedia:

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfekt and
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pr%C3%A4teritum

which, slightly disturbingly, both seem to have been rewritten since I used them for information (although a native speaker did recommend the sites at the time I used them, so at least one native speaker did think they were supplying correct information as they were).

I also used the book Hammer's German Grammar and Usage (in my case the second edition). Here's a link to the fourth edition on Amazon: Hammer Grammar, although I recommend any edition of it that you can get your hands on.

I also liked the information in about.com on this topic: http://german.about.com/library/verbs/blverb_past.htm