Language Information
Writing system
German is written using the Latin alphabet. In addition to the 26 standard letters, German has three vowels with Umlaut, namely ä, ö and ü, as well as a special symbol for "ss", which is only used after long vowels or diphthongs, the Eszett (ß).
Pronunciation
Notes
- b = [ p ] at the end
of a syllable or before s or t, [ b ] before a vowel
- ch = [
χ ] after a, o or u, [ k ] when followed
by a, o or u at the beginning of a word, [ ç ] elsewhere
- d = [ t ] at end of
a syllable or before s or t, [ d ] before a vowel
- e = [ ə ] in unaccented syllables
- g = [ k ] at end of
a syllable or before s or t, [ g ] before a vowel, [ ʒ ] in some loanwords, ig
= [ iç ]
- h when appearing
after a vowel, makes the vowel long, [ h ] elsewhere
- j = [ ʒ ] in loan words, [ j ] elsewhere
- r = [ɐ], e.g. fort [fɔɐt] or silent, e.g. Haar
[haː], between a vowel and a consonant, [ʁ] or [ʀ] elsewhere
- s = [ z ] between
vowels, [ ʃ ] before t or p at the beginning of
words and [ s ] elsewhere
- v = [ v ] in loan
words
- y = [ y ] in words
derived from Greek, [ i ] or [ j ] elsewhere
- dsch,
ph, qu and y only appear in loan words
German is an inflected language. In contrast to Latin, the inflection
sometimes affects not only the word ending but also its stem, making declension
and conjugation slightly more difficult.
- one of three
declension classes
- one of
three genders: masculine, feminine, or neuter. Word endings indicate some
grammatical genders; others are arbitrary and must be memorized.
- two numbers:
singular and plural
- four
cases: nominative, genitive, dative, and accusative case.
In the German orthography all nouns and most words that take the
syntactical function of nouns are capitalized.
- one of
two conjugation classes, weak and strong. There are about 200 irregular
verbs
- three persons
- two numbers:
singular and plural
- three moods:
Indicative, Conditional, Imperative
- two voices: active
and passive; the passive being composed and dividable into static and
dynamic
- 2 non-composed
tenses (Present, Preterite) and 4 composed
tenses (Perfect, Plusquamperfect, Future I, Future
II)
- no distinction
between aspects
There are also a lot of ways to expand the meaning of a base verb through
several prefixes.
The word order is much more flexible than in English. The word order can be
changed for subtle changes of a sentence's meaning.
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