Adjectives, let’s talk “Akkusativ” (Level: A2)
Welcome back or welcome for the first time! Glad you’re here and hoping that everyone’s families are safe and healthy during this Corona world crisis. So let’s all make good use of our time and get right into these German adjectives!
Last post Adorably Arduous Adjectives (Level: A2) introduced the idea of German adjectives. Again, this is a level 2 topic because in order to be able to do these adjectives properly, you’ll need to understand a few A1 ideas.
Idea #1: Every noun has a gender and it is very important (when you want to build great sentences) to know the gender for each noun’s article. Articles are the and a/an in the English language, but not in German. The genders for the are masculine (der), feminine (die), and neutral (das). But keep in mind that der, die and das changes depending on idea #2.
der Mann – masculine, die Frau – feminine, das Kind – neutral
Idea #2: There are 4 cases in German and it affects the articles you use. Let’s take the sentence… The father of a friend has a business in the city.
- Who is this sentence about? The father is who the sentence is about. In German, this would be the Nominativ case, so you would apply the Nominativ rules on the article, in this case father or Vater is masculine and the becomes in nominative der, so you have der Vater.
- What does he have? He has a business, which is the Akkusativ case. So business or Betrieb is masculine and a becomes in Akkusativ einen, so you have einen Betrieb.
- Where is this business? In the city is the location and it is the Dativ case. So city or Stadt is feminine and the becomes in Dativ der, so you have der Stadt. (Notice that even though you know Stadt is feminine and is associated with die Stadt, it changes depending on the case! There are many conjugation tables that help you.)
- Whose father? Of a friend is the Genitiv case. So friend or Freunde is masculine and a becomes eines, so you have eines Freundes. (You add -es to Freund because that is part of the rule of Genitiv with masculine. Yes, lots of memorization!) To make this a bit easier to process, here’s the sentence.
Idea #3: The and a can have different rules which includes adjectives. The or definite articles are called bestimmte Artikel in German. A/an or indefinite articles are called unbestimmte Artikel. So after you determine the gender and sentence position, you can choose which table to refer to depending on bestimmte or unbestimmte Artikel. Note that for Akkusativ, it is the same as Nominativ except for der and (k)ein.
Here is a short example sentence to show the 3 ideas in action: I have a red ball.
Idea #1: What are the genders?
In this case, I or ich has no gender. The gender for ball or Ball is masculine.
Idea #2: What are the cases and for which nouns?
Who is this sentence about? I or ich, so that is Nominativ. > Ich habe a red .
What do I have? A red ball. We know that this is Akkusativ which a is einen. > Ich habe einen red Ball.
Idea #3: What is the adjective rule in this situation?
The only adjective is red for the noun ball. We know ball or Ball is masculine, Akkusativ case, and indefinite/unbestimmte. This will use the left side of the Akkusativ Adjektiv table. > Ich habe einen roten Ball.
It’s a bit of thinking, but clear and focused practice makes perfect and eventually natural. Below the exercise of the week will give you some more practice!
German Exercise for the Week:
Übung für Verben und Adjektive in Akkusitiv 2 (Level: A2)
This will give you practice with the Akkusativ case adjectives and also provides you a table to reverence.
