English-German Grammar Course - AKA "How to learn German as an English Speaker...."

Community-Created Courses German
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… who forgot every bit of grammar they may have ever learned!"

Hi all, I’m going to start putting together a Memrise course on this exact “subject”, as frankly 1) I can barely tell the difference between a noun & a verb (slightly joking), and 2) I’m fed up having to learn a language by example & through repetition, but not knowing what the hell I am learning because when it is “explained” it is in the language I’m trying to learn in the first place.

I use a simple example of my frustration in learning German… It is like saying you want to train to run a marathon, but the first thing “the coach” does is cut off your legs and then says “now we begin!”

Today, I took 2 online placement tests - 1 said I was A2.2, the other said B2. Personally, I felt like I was testing in a completely different language, with a completely different grammar & vocabulary list. And this is with nearly 5000 “words/phrases” (probably only 3500 with duplicates) into Memrise, plus hours/days spent at 75% finished with the Duolingo German tree and countless hours in Deutsche Welle courses, etc., I feel like I don’t know sh*t.

I have a good way (I think) to go about it this course idea … and I’ve just scraped data from a German/English Grammatical Glossary online and thrown in Excel. It’s a good start, and I’ll credit accordingly (if that bothers anyone)… but I know it is just the base.

Here are my base column (5) headers… audio clips & pronunciation I could care less about…

English
German
Definition
Sub-definition or Special Notes
Examples

I’m looking for someone(s) that is/are a bit of a Memrise creator wiz and would be interested in helping me make this happen. I’m brand new to the Memrise backend… just starting to edit my first course, but I get the gist, and that the data needs to come from a spreadsheet.

I can envision that “answers” may also include not only the direct translation, but examples or definitions, etc. So maybe “das Modalverbum, Modalverba” has several entries, one for english (modal verb), one for definition/description, one for examples, etc. So I believe this would determine at the start whether the number of column needed in the database is 5 or less.

If this sounds interesting to you and you might want to help, give advice, etc., on how to build the course itself… I am all ears (preferably in English!)

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Sounds like a cool idea! I may be able to help you with this and that :wink:

I know my way around German grammar and grammatical terminology and know how to explain basic grammatical terms so that beginners can understand what they mean.

So if you need some definitions of say, what an object or a subject is, or what the difference is between adverbs and adjectives, that kind of thing, I can help you.

I usually explain these things in German to German-speaking learners of English, but it is no probs for me to do it the other way round :slight_smile:

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I don’t think it is practical to learn grammar here on any sort of active level. This maybe rather unpopular opinion, but if you want to learn German grammar… you need to get a good grammar book and read it. Memrise is great for nuking vocab. German grammar can be tricky to tackle, and will be a lot of work to take any sort of serious approach to it here. I was toying (and still am) with making cartoons with missing sentences and having the learner play around with what fits best with the given context of the drawing, but at best, this is still passive learning.

It is good you want to learn grammar though. That means you are really serious about learning German. But You will learn much faster and more effectively with a good book and asking questions here about anything that stumps you. Plenty of experts here to help you out. My tip… read a lot(audio books are amazing), and watch a lot of TV (as you read a grammar book).

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I am not proposing to teach German Grammar (in the sense of constructing grammatically correct sentences), this is to lay the ground work for what grammar is (the terminology) between English & German.

I don’t know your country or mother language or where you learned German, but I would ask if you’ve ever looked at a German [only] course book closely, not looking at the examples or word lists, but rather looking at everything (the framework) that supports it? Where is the word lists and definitions for all those phrases & words used in the “framework”? There isn’t, rather the creators completely forget that they are teaching a language to someone that has no knowledge of the language AND they teach it as though the student does (and has some extensive vocabulary list already).

hmmm… I don’t want to go to far off on a rant, but I’m looking at the fundamental frameworks, as I still believe German can be “hacked” and it is largely made to be difficult by design and a litany of other reasons stemming from German cultural values.

Sorry, one more point…

müssen vs haben, what part of one word “müssen” meaning must (I must do something) and multiple potential meanings of haben “I have to do something” do people not get? All of the official courses use “have to” as the definition of müssen… “must” is some side note. JFC, just use must already and stop this insanity of ambiguously using “have”. Every course that has English have as the correct answer for müssen needs to be changed.

mazbe it is claimed they are synonyms, or mazbe it is some Äalways have to be politeÄ German BS and ÄmustÄ is offensive, I do not know… but it is obnoxious.

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“to have to” is an infinitive form and is therefore the correct translation of “müssen” in the infinitive form.

There isn’t an infinitive form, “to must” or anything like that.

But I am not really sure if I follow your rant properly, to be honest.

For example, if you wished to use “müssen” as an infinitive when translating “wir werden nächste Woche gehen müssen” (not that a native speaker would actually use “werden”, but this is just for the sake of argument), you would have to write “we will have to go next week” in English. “must” would not pop up in the translation at all.

Does that clarify things for you at all?

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in English there is …

I must do…
You must do…
He/She/It must do…
We must do…
You guys must do…
They must do…

But in German translations to English all of the above occurs as such, as though the English word must does not exist.

I have to do…
You have to do…
He/She/It have to do…
We have to do…
You guys have to do…
They have to do…

For what reason is the English “to have to” as a definition of “müssen” being taught; German nuance? Well, it is not German nuance that is being taught, it is an English translation of a German word. Is “mussen” an ambiguous word in German, or does it have a quite strict usage & meaning? I think it is the later. So why then is an English word[s] selected to translate into English, one that can be [is] very ambiguous and does not have very strict usages and meaning?

This is applying a German interpretation of the English language from the perspective of a German speaker. Not, what it should be doing, applying an English interpretation of the English language from the perspective of a German speaker.

I’m not understanding your example… I would not say “we ---- will have ----- to go ----- next week” (---- = pauses in saying the sentence). I would say “I must go ---- next week”.

Your choice of werden … mussen, I would treat as no different than a separable verb, where the prefix is mussen and the root is werden, and the prefix, as it does with other separable verbs, changes/alters the meaning of the root verb. The end result of its combined use, not "we ---- will have ---- to… " but rather “we must…”

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Because how often to people really say ‘‘must’’ vs the more common have to? must is not really archaic, but it is not really common either. It’s more common to see must as a noun these days. zB, ‘‘that bike is a must’’. It is far more common to say you have to do something in English vs I must do something. I understand you are frustrated with things not being 1 for 1, but you will realize in time, that the English translation is merely just a guide, and not the source code of what ever language you are learning. This case German.

If anything, German is the source code for English since English offspringed from it. Why it is easier for Germans to learn English, than vice versa. I don’t really have a good analogy to describe this, other than it is easier to walk forward than it is to sprint going backwards.

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Also, I don’t consider that hacking German obviously. What I think of hacking is a bit different than that. I will give you a quick example…

der Missbrauch - means Abuse. You simply learn this one word and now with a basic understanding of how German works, you can make many more words without actually learning them, regardless if they are real words or not, Germans will understand you perfectly fine. This to me is hacking’’.

der Kindmissbrauch
der Drogenmissbrauch
der Wortmissbrauch
der Zeitmissbrauch

Basically taking short cuts.

or adding ‘‘er’’ to end of a verb after taking out the ‘‘en’’ to get a title, occupation or attribute of a person. Again, not always correct to do, but I consider it hacking because it is abusing a grammar pattern to achieve a shortcut. zB.

verfassen - to write
der Verfasser - writer

spielen - to play
der Spieler - player

fahren - to drive
der Faher - driver

I always tell people learning German when they ask me for advice, learn VERBS lol. Learning one verb and applying a basic grammar knowledge you can make sometimes unlimited words. Paying attention to what ‘‘ung’’ does to end of a verb word turned noun. Or haft, lei, keit…

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You have just taken an example and turned it into the framework of what I am attempting to do.

If “must” is not used in English… then how about we just get rid of “müssen” all together??? Oh, we can’t because it is one of the most important verbs in German, so use it as it is intended, not as some ambiguitiy of the English language. And as I described it about as a “seperable” verb, it is exactly that as a modal verb, but for whatever stupid reason and of all the words German does combine together to mean completely different things müssenwerden doesn’t exist.

Here’s another extremely difficult word/translation for both Germans & English speakers… will (german Ich/He/She/It want) and will (english I/He/She/It will). Will and want are too completely different things, with two completely different uses.

Sorry, I believe you are looking at this from the wrong perspective of one that already learned the language, not as one who is learning the language. You have the luxury of hindsight, I do not.

As to learning verbs… how many verbs am I supposed to learn? 100, 500, 1000 or 5000 before I have enough to get by as I don’t walk around with a cartoon bubble over my head that reads, “I’m just a German beginner. Please only speak to me in A1 German.” There is always another verb, a verb combination, a compound (seperable or inseperable) verb that can do the same thing as the simple verb… and yes, these are used more frequently than the simple ones.

Sorry, not being pissed at you… but I have yet again found another duplicate course of one that I am editing, that I am only editing because there were too many mistakes in it (and I don’t want to be learning wrong). This second course, looks better (more inclusive), but you guessed it… it has lots of mistakes and an inactive creator. :expressionless:

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To be honest, I feel like I can’t even get to the point of learning tenses because I’m always learning another verb & its meaning. And with every verb comes a whole slew of tenses (words) and 6 different conjugations for each tense. So each verb is not a word to be learned, but a course inuntoitself. And then there are nouns, which also come with a whole slew of things that have to be learned with each and every one of them (pronouns, articles, endings for adjectives, dative, nomative, accussative and genitive). And why is this… oh right, because German has to have genders. If “must” is archaic, what the hell are genders when we could just use “the” and the entire problem goes away?!

Everyone just tells me to “just speak, don’t worry about mistakes”. How the hell does one do that when those “mistakes” change the meaning entirely? For example… die Bank is correct, but der Bank is also correct when it is dative! And for all intensive purposes all masculine nouns take on times when they are “feminine”. So yeah, holding onto archaic useage is mastered by German. :expressionless:

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“müssen” - when standing alone - is the infinitive form that is - by convention - translated as “to have to”

“dürfen” - when standing alone - is translated as “to be allowed to”

“können” - when standing alone - is translated as “to be able to”.

These are just conventions that have been developed over time.

The words “can” and “could” do not appear in the infinitive form of “to be able to”, but are generally regarded as the present and past forms (along with “am able to” and “was able to”) of “to be able to”. Not mentioning them in the infinitive form doesn’t mean that people think they don’t exist, or that they don’t get taught.

The same is true for “müssen”. Just because the infinitive form is “to have to” doesn’t mean that nobody knows that you can say “must” as well.

However, from the point of view of someone teaching English to German speakers, more often than not, German speakers tend to overuse “must”. I try to get across to the people I teach that it is perfectly OK to say, “I must” and “we must” - when “must” is being used in the sense of giving an order to oneself - but we don’t use it so often when talking about other people, so it is best to avoid saying “you must” and “he or she must” do X.

Of course, we use “must” in other ways, to express assumptions, for example, “That must be the postman” when we hear a letter clatter through the letterbox and we say this because the postman usually arrives around this time and we therefore strongly assume that this is so.

This meaning of “must” isn’t translated with “müssen” in German …

So, as you can see, translating modal verbs - especially the triad “sollen”, “müssen” and “dürfen” - is pretty tricky and in many cases it is best to develop an understanding of how these verbs work through reading and massive exposure.

Trying to understand modal verbs in a more formal sense, or trying to learn them together is a recipe for frustration.

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“werden” is a verb. Often it is a helping verb, also known as an auxiliary verb because in this capacity it can’t stand alone.

“müssen” is a verb, usually classified as a modal verb.

You will drive yourself insane if you start messing around with long-standing definitions and calling “werden müssen” a separable verb.

A separable verb is something entirely different.

I would recommend that you try to understand what the standard definitions mean and stick to them. It’s like deciding to call a ‘gear stick’ an ‘accelerator’ … It could get VERY confusing.

Please don’t try to reinvent the wheel! Or, as the Germans say, “das Rad neu erfinden” …

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Pretty much.

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I think you are mistaken, and if we go off of what Geil said above, English takes its roots from German, then it is very reasonable to assume the conjugated forms Ich muss, Du musst or he/she/it muss were the origins of I must, you must, he/she/it must.

There are other meanings of müssen as outlined here, and for brevity’s purpose must is the one word that encompasses all the others, not “to have to” … https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/müssen and without having to add "to … to [thing needing to be done].

If you are teaching Germans English, I would have to say you are imparting a politeness onto a word/meaning that is not intended to be polite, simply based on the German cultural value of being polite, and not the intended purpose/meaning of the word. Adding a translation of a helping verb to an imperative is adding a redundancy to a statement that does not require/nor want a redundancy, only to make it “polite” and to water down the meaning/intensity of the intent. This makes zero sense, other than to impart a German value on the American/English language.

Let’s take an example… mother to a child

You must clean your room.

or

You [to] have to clean your room [implied, well if you feel like it as I don’t want to bother you and your busy schedule.]

Sarcasm intended, because this is exactly what this “english translation according to German etiquette” is doing to the English language for German natives, and would make them seem wordy for no reason.

Ich muss mal! I must pee! Not, I [to] have to Pee! By the time I would have German “politified” it, I would have already peed myself.

We must get rid of Trump!

We have to get rid of Trump! Well maybe, if we feel like it, or if we are not lazy. Ok guys, if we “have to”… but let me finish this episode of Breaking Bad first!

We must reduce our carbon emissions!

We have to reduce our carbon emissions. Nah, don’t feel like it. Or … If I get around to it.

Of course, you could write “HAVE TO” in all capitals to intone the same meaning as “must” written normally, but screaming into the keyboard is not polite.

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And if I am not mistaken, intonation of a sentence in German is very important.

I don’t know about you, be when we say “We must blah, blah, blah.” must is the word that is accented, hard sounds at front and back.

On the other hand… “We have to blah, blah, blah.” “have to” is not accented, no intonation, it actually blends right in to the point of missing it… which is maybe why when someone is told they “have to” do anything… they ignore it. :wink:

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I think Amanda’s wisdom is going over your head while you fall in the rabbit hole of German.

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am I bit crazy? Maybe, but for a language that doesn’t want to use the word “must” in its translations… then why do they even bother including it? The following are from the old official German course and all uses of müssen. Which starts off with using must, just like almost every other introduction to müssen. But then never uses it again. Points to you both…

müssen = to have (to do something), must
ich muss = I have (to do something), I must
du musst = you have (to do something), you must
er muss = he has (to do something), he must
wir müssen = we have (to do something), we must
ihr müsst = you have (to do something), you must
sie müssen = they have (to do something), they must
Sie müssen = you have (to do something), you must

wir müssen nach Japan fahren = we have to drive to Japan
wir müssen auf das Flugzeug warten = we have to wait for the plane
sie muss eine Fahrkarte kaufen = she has to buy a ticket
er muss auf ein Schiff warten = he has to wait for a ship
ich muss ihr etwas schenken aber ich weiß nicht was = I have to give her something but I don’t know what

meine Oma möchte nichts haben aber ich muss ihr ein Geschenk kaufen = my grandma doesn’t want anything but I have to buy her a present

er muss ihr etwas kaufen = he has to buy her something
wir müssen ihnen etwas zum Trinken geben = we have to give them something to drink

sie muss nie die Wäsche waschen = she never has to do the laundry
wir müssen immer das Geschirr spülen = we always have to do the dishes
ich muss einen Aufsatz schreiben = I have to write an essay

wir müssen morgen in London sein also nehmen wir heute abend den Zug = we have to be in London tomorrow so we will take the train tonight

ich musste = I had (to do something)
du musstest = you had (to do something)
er musste = he had (to do something)
wir mussten = we had (to do something)
ihr musstet = you had (to something)
sie mussten = they had (to do something)
Sie mussten = you had (to do something)

wer musste nach Österreich fahren? = who had to go to Austria?

musstest du zur Schule gehen? = did you have to go to school?
ich musste etwas essen = I had to eat something
wir mussten uns die Nachrichten anschauen = we had to watch the news
du musstest nach Liverpool fahren = you had to go to Liverpool

Now in the Duolingo sentences course on Modal Verbs, we have a different story… they seem to be unable to figure out how they want to use it. must, have to, must… who explictitive knows

But when they do use must… it reads and sounds a whole lot better. And if I changed them to a sentence… from

Wir müssen ihn wecken. = We have to wake him.
Müssen wir ihn wecken? = Have we to wake him? Sounds moronic, and Must we wake him? is spot on. As does… We must wake him.

Here’s another…
Ich muss ihm helfen. = I have to help him.
Muss ich ihm helfen? = Have I to help him? Sounds unnatural, yet Must I help him? Is what what one would say. As does, I must help him.

Another…
Muss ich alles entscheiden? = Do I have to decide everything? (this actually sounds like a drama queen) = Must I decide everything? does not have the whiny, drawing out for the full effect of being bothered by everything. So what is the intent of the original German, full drama queen or being pissed off your partner never makes a decision? I have a feeling it is the latter, as I’ve read elsewhere that in order to get the full effect, Germans like to string together a whole lot more words instead of brevity. And that’s pretty much what I am saying is true in English… stop using “to have to” in the English translation, unless one is going for full drama queen, which is not what müssen is for.

But anyways, sad realization tonight… Memrise is not going to be able to do what I want with this course idea.

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I admire your passion. But focusing on a minuet detail such as this, is rather time wasting and counter productive. This has nothing to do with German or English anymore. But 101, never ever depend on your native translation when learning a word. I’m going to blow up your head in a bit, but other experienced lads will agree with me here…

müssen means müssen. Ok? Not must or have to.
I’ll let you riddle on that for a while.

and please get a grammar book.

I highly highly highly recommend that one.

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If you know about 4k words, just read all of the HP and all of the Tintenwelt with the accompanying audiobooks. Throw in some Peter Stamm, Kafka, and Robert Walser. You’ll get a knack for the grammar and understand the language much better, plus reinforce your vocabulary with constant repetition.

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