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Here are some things you might order at a restaurant, fast food or sit-down: This list of foods (die Speise, Speisen) is very useful. Print it out and keep it. Of course it is recommended that you
memorize all of the translations and genders of these foods, but the lesson problems and test will only require the bolded ones
to be memorized. As you know from the Intro, in German,
there are four cases. Three are used often. The first, Nominative Case, you
learned in Lesson 1. It covers the
subject, and the
predicate noun (in "He is (noun).", (noun) is the predicate noun). The second, the Accusative
Case, you will learn now. It covers the direct object and the object of several prepositions. The third, the Dative Case
will be taught later on. It covers the indirect object and the object of many other prepostitions. Note: The Accusative Case and Dative
Case are identical in English; that's where the extra case comes from. * The indefinite article for plurals is non-existant. However related words, such as possessives and the kein-
words that you will learn later this lesson, will end in eine for plurals. In the articles, the memory hook for accusative case is "Der goes to den (pronounced "dain") and the rest stay the same.". The
masculine indefinite article goes to einen, and everything else stays the same there. Therefore above, der Hamburger goes to
den Hamburger and ein Hamburger goes to einen Hamburger when the hamburger is the direct object, such as in "Er
hat einen Hamburger." ("He has a hamburger.") If you are getting confused, it's fine. This topic is one of the hardest for English speakers to grasp. Here are some
solutions: To find out the case of something, first find the verb. The verb rules the sentence. Everything revolves around it. Next you
find the subject of the sentence. The subject is the thing/person that is doing the verb. The subject is always
in the Nominative Case, so it takes on the der, die, das, die, or ein, eine, ein. Now you look back at the verb. If it is a being verb (am, are, is, etc.), the next noun after the verb is the
predicate noun. An easy way to figure this out is to write an equation. If the verb can be replaced with an
equals sign (=), then the following noun is a predicate noun. If it can't be replaced by and equals sign, refer to the next
paragraph. The predicate noun is also always in the Nominative Case, so the same rules
apply to it. If the verb of the sentence is an action verb (playing, throwing, making, eating), find what the subject is doing the verb to.
For example, if the verb is "makes" (macht), you look for what is being made. That is the direct object. The direct
object is always in the Accusative Case, so it takes on the den, die, das, die, or einen,
eine, ein. The indefinite articles, when you just look at their endings, go -, e, -, e for nominative case, and en, e, -, e for
accusative. This can be memorized as "Blankie, Blankie, Any Blankie." Remember, between nominative and accusative, the only third-person change is in the masculine form. The pronouns experience a much bigger change than the articles. This is also true in English, as the articles (a, an, the) do
not change ever, but I goes to me, we goes to us, etc. Not everything is the same, though. While me is mich and us is uns, the second and third persons undergo
different changes. In third person, as in the articles, the only change is in masculine singular. Following the "der goes to den"
rule, er goes to ihn when in the accusative case. The second person in English never changes. In German, du goes to dich and ihr goes to euch. Sie, the formal
version of either, stays the same. Remember, Sie (2nd person formal) and sie (3rd person plural) only differ in their meanings
and the fact that the former is capitilized and the latter is not. This stays true throughout German grammar. Here is a tabular representation of the above. Note: This is just a quick lesson in English grammar applied into German. If you already know all about antecedents in
English, skip the first paragraph. When using a pronoun, you have to know what it is for it to work. There are some rare exceptions, such as in mysteries or
drama, but otherwise this is always true. Sometimes in dialogue this is taken care of by pointing or making some other gesture,
but most of the time, the pronoun modifies something already mentioned. The object/person mentioned earlier that turns
into a pronoun later is called the antecedent. In German this is very useful. You can't simply say 'it' anymore. Many food words are masculine and feminine, and when you
turn them into pronouns, they turn into 'he', 'she', 'him', and 'her', not always 'it'. For example, the sentence "The
cheeseburger tastes good. It's very crunchy." turns into "The cheeseburger tastes good. He's very crunchy." Note: You
will learn how to say this in German later in this lesson. Why is it "he"? This is where the antecedent comes in. Because there are foods that are masculine and feminine in German, you
can't assume the 'es'. You have to look back at the previous sentence, at the antecedent, der Cheeseburger. "Der
Cheeseburger" is replaced by er (since it is the subject, and therefore in Nominative Case). Therefore, all you need to know are
these connections: der/den-er/ihn, die-sie, das-es, die-sie. Of these five verbs, only trinken and bekommen are regular. Essen is irregular (that's what the "I" means). Do you
remember from the last lesson 'lesen' and 'sehen'? In both of them, the first 'e' changed to 'ie' in the du- and er/sie/es-forms.
Well essen experiences the same change, except that it changes to 'i', not 'ie'. Also, it acts the same as 'lesen' in
the du-form: You don't have three s's in a row. Therefore, du/er/sie/es isst and everything else is the same. Isst sounds and looks a lot like ist. The minute difference happens to be in the way you pronounce the
s. When you mean eats it is sometimes an overstressed hissing (i.e. extremely sharp) sound. In normal life
Germans, too, can only tell which verb is meant from knowing the context. Just like in last lesson, where you could say, "Ich spiele Fußball gern.", you can also extend it to food. "I like to
eat cheeseburgers." is translated as "Ich esse Cheeseburger gern." The last two verbs (marked (M)) are modals. They will be discussed in the next section. In the introduction, you learned that
German has no helping verbs. Instead, they have modals, words that basically do the same thing. Modals are conjugated very differently from normal verbs. The ich- and er/sie/es-forms are always the same, while the du-form
adds an 'st'. Most modals experience a vowel change from singular to plural, and the rest is the same. Möchten isn't technically a modal, but it acts exactly the same. There is no vowel change, and the ich- and er/sie/es forms
are "möchte". Here is the complete conjugation: Möchten means "would like" and can be applied to food (i.e. Ich möchte einen Cheeseburger.). Wollen is a true modal; it even changes vowels. Ich/er/sie/es will and du willst. Here is the complete conjugation: Wollen can also be applied to food, but may be considered impolite and demanding ("Ich will einen Cheeseburger!" directly
means "I want a cheeseburger!"). Wollen should not be confused with the future tense, despite the presence of the English word 'will' in the conjugations.
However, will can also mean an intent or a
document showing what one wants to happen. So it is not so different from 'to want' as possibly originally presumed. In German, instead of saying, "I'm hungry.", you say "I have hunger." The same applies to thirst. Here are the German
translations: Hunger - der Hunger (hoon-gare) OR (hoong-er)<-Perhaps a dialect. Thirst - der Durst These two words do not have a plural form (this is the same in English). When using them, you don't need to worry about the
'der'; you can just say, "Ich habe Hunger." to say you're hungry. In Lesson 1, you learned how to talk formally,
using phrases like "Guten Morgen!" and "Wie heißen Sie?". There are, however, a few words that are 'survival words' in Germany,
specifically Danke - Thank you, Thanks Bitte - Please and You're welcome. To make this even more formal, you can tack on the word 'schön' to the end of "Thank you" and "You're welcome" to make
'dankeschön' and 'bitteschön' (both one word) in response. Schön literally means 'pretty' (you'll relearn this next lesson), so
it turns those everyday phrases into compliments ("Thanks, pretty."). Some ways to say "thank you": Some ways to say "You are welcome": Twice you have been taught that the ending of the indefinite article for plurals would be eine (for Nominative and
Accusative cases), if there was an indefinite article for plurals. Now that lesson applies. The kein-words have
the same endings as the ein-words, and they mean the opposite: no, not any, none. For example, "kein Cheeseburger" means "no
cheeseburger". "Keine Cheeseburger" (in this case Cheeseburger is plural) means "No cheeseburgers". Notice the
'e' at the end of 'keine'. That's the ending for plurals and feminine nouns. Restaurant - die Gaststätte, Gaststätten at (the) - beim There are many restaurants you might find in Germany. Much like in English-speaking countries, you would more likely use the
name of the restaurant than name what kind of restaurant. But here are some restaurants one would find in Germany: Not done yet. You read at the beginning of this lesson that the Accusative Case covers
the direct object and the objects of some prepositions. Here are those prepositions that always fall under Accusative Case Durch - through Für - for Gegen - against Ohne - without Um - at, around These prepositions can be memorized easily using a common tune. "It's a Small World After All" and "Mary Had a Little Lamb"
both work well for this. You learned um last lesson, and ohne earlier this lesson. Durch and gegen will be taught
in depth later, and für will be taught now. Up until this point, you have only worried about the Accusative Case in third person. Für, meaning 'for', can and should be
used in the first and second persons, too. Here's an example: "The cheeseburger is for me." - "Der Cheeseburger ist für mich." As you can see, 'me' is put into accusative case because the preposition is für. In German (as in English) there are several ways of telling how food tastes. You can do this with 'gut' and 'schlecht' from
Lesson 1 to say: Der Cheeseburger schmeckt gut - The meal tastes good Der Cheeseburger schmeckt schlecht - The meal tastes bad But this is vague. Why do you think it tastes good? You can use the following words to more acutely describe how the
cheeseburger tastes: Schmecken is a regular verb. Here is it's conjugation: The first and second persons really shouldn't be used. No one is going to say, "You guys taste salty" or "I taste creamy" (at
least hopefully). So the only forms you need to know are er/sie/es schmeckt and sie (plural) schmecken. You can use 'schmeckt' and 'schmecken' or 'ist' and 'sind' to state how the food tastes. Just use whichever one you would use
in English and it'll be correct. Although the English meaning of schmecken is simply to taste, "Schmeckt der Cheeseburger?" can be
taken in a positive way to mean "Do you like the cheeseburger?". In other words, schmecken alone can mean to taste
good. "The cheeseburger tastes good." does not sound that specific as to which cheeseburger you are talking about. You
could be talking about some other cheeseburger than the one in front of you. It just isn't clear. Now, if you said,
"This cheeseburger tastes good.", it would be obvious that you're talking about the cheeseburger you're eating. 'Dieser'
is the German translation for 'this': "Dieser Cheeseburger schmeckt gut." Dieser is a special adjective. It changes forms in different situations: different genders and different cases. It can also
mean 'these' when modifying a plural. Here are its forms: As you can see, dieser is only appropriate for modifying masculine nouns in nominative case. But 'Cheeseburger',
which is masculine, is the subject of the sentence, "Dieser Cheeseburger schmeckt gut." So it is correct in that
circumstance. You may be wondering why 'dieser' is how it is presented as a whole. After all, it only applies to masculine nouns in the
nominative case, while 'diese' applies for both feminine and plural nouns, nominative and accusative case. But
to be gender-less, you could use 'dieses' instead. It's the fact that you could use any of those in the nominative case
to summarize the word. Dieser's location in the upper left hand corner makes it stand out and get chosen. Jeder means 'every'. It acts exactly like 'dieser' in its endings, so it should be easy to remember. Here are the
different forms: Notice the absence of the plural form. When you think about this, it's the same in English: no one says 'every books'. 'Welcher' is the third of this threesome of adjectives. 'Welcher' means 'which', the seventh w-word so far (wer, was, wann,
wo, warum, wie, and welcher). Its forms have the same endings as 'dieser' and 'welcher'. You might want to say 'every day', 'this week', 'every morning', or 'which Tuesday night?'. But to do this, not only do you
need to know the jeder-forms, but also the genders of the times and the cases. The second one is easy: Whenever you do
something at a certain time, that time is put into Accusative Case. Last lesson, you
learned the gender of one time: der Tag. So now you know everything to say 'diesen Tag', 'jeden Tag', and 'welchen Tag?'
(this day, every day, and which day?). Here are the cases of all the times in Lesson 2: When extending to 'which Tuesday night?', remember that the night stays feminine on Tuesday, so it stays "Welche
Dienstagnacht?". Likewise, you can say 'every June' the same as 'every month': 'jeden Juni'. Ich möchte einen Cheeseburger. Der schmeckt sehr gut. Ich esse jeden Tag Cheeseburger. Die habe ich gern. Look at the second sentence of each of these German dialogues. What's missing? That's right, instead of "Der Cheeseburger
schmeckt sehr gut." and "Die Cheeseburger habe ich gern.", both of the 'Cheeseburger's, so to speak, are dropped. We're left with
just the articles, only in this case, they aren't articles. They're demonstrative pronouns. Demonstrative pronouns aren't scary. They're just the same as the normal pronouns, only they give more oomph to the
sentence. They can be translated as either 'this' or 'that' ("I'd like a cheeseburger. That tastes very good."), or 'these' or
'those' for plurals ("I eat cheeseburgers every day. These I like."). Demonstrative pronouns are exactly the same as the definite articles (well, there is one change in dative, but that will be
covered in Lesson 7). If you are not sure of the
gender (meaning in context, the speaker doesn't know, not that you've forgotten that it's 'der Cheeseburger'), use 'das', like in
"Was ist das?" (What is that?). Germany, Austria, Lichtenstein, Luxemburg, Belgium and Südtirol – in other words: all German speaking regions except
Switzerland – have given up their former currencies and joined the Euro in 1999. One Euro is worth 100 Cents.
Due to strict Swiss neutrality, Switzerland has kept the Swiss Francs (Franken = 100 Rappen). 'Euro' normally does not have change in the plural in German, so you would say "Ich habe 500 Euro." Nevertheless, there is an
exception: Euro coins. If you say "Ich habe vier Euros.", you actually are saying that you have four 1-Euro coins.
Because euro coins look different in each country, many people in Europe started collecting foreign euro coins. In this case you
can say "Ich habe irische Euros." (I have Irish euro coins.) for example. There is not yet a rule whether or not the word "Cent" has a different plural form. The majority of Germans are using
the word "Cent" as a plural form, but when they don't it is simply "Cents". In German "euro" is pronounced [‘oi-ro], not [you-ro]. For "Cent" there are two pronunciations: you can either pronounce it as
in English or you say "tzent". The latter version seams to be preferred by older people. When at a restaurant, you will want to pay at the end. You can use this vocabulary to help you. to pay - zahlen the bill - die Rechnung "How much is that?" - "Was macht das?" ("What does that make?") To ask for the bill you can say, "Bitte zahlen!", or make it a complete sentence: "Ich möchte/will zahlen!", or "Wir
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