German Learning Tips from Rosetta Stone
About the German language
German is an official language of Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, Liechtenstein and Luxembourg. German is widely taught as a second language in schools and universities across Europe. In fact it is the third most taught and translated language in the world.
German Learning Tips
- German pronunciation and spelling are regular and predictable.
- German nouns have three forms: masculine, feminine, and neuter. Nouns are always capitalised, no matter where they appear in the sentence. For example: Der Mann läuft.
- Many verbs have two parts; the first is placed after the subject and the second part is placed at the end of the sentence. For example: Der Mann hat einen Apfel gegessen.
- German uses the Roman alphabet plus an additional letter: ß.
- Vowels in some German words have an umlaut ¨ mark above them. This mark tells you how to pronounce the word correctly and may also help to distinguish between two words that are otherwise identical. For example, ein Apfel – zwei Äpfel.
- There are formal and informal ways to address other people in German, depending on the age of the speaker and their relationship to the person being addressed.
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