Hilf Mir, Ich Will Deutsch Lernen! (Help Me, I Want To Learn German) Thread

Hey und Guten Tag IndieDB. I'm specifically looking for the help of any and all German speakers on this forum to help me conquer the many things I don't understand about German. This thread will be specifically for not just me, but any aspiring Deutsch learners to ask questions and get help.

To give you all a little bit of background on myself, I'm 15 (almost 16), and have had a strange obsession over Germany and her language for a few years now. I started studying the language on my own in 8th grade, 2 years ago, and if you have ever tried learning a language without a teacher and lessons to follow you'll know it's pretty hard, (my highschool no longer gives a German class, so I'm pretty much on my own.)

Now with my personal knowledge of German I understand a good amount. (By good amount, you could probably compare my speaking and reading and understanding skills to a first week kindergartener). I know my numbers, barely my alphabet, how to conjugate basic -en verbs, how to conjugate some irregular verbs (sein is all I can remember that's irregular but still), and basics of sentence structure (but I still can't make very intelligent sounding sentences yet, lol).

Anyways, here on this thread I will put many of the questions I have and I hope in that process not only can I be helped, but others can be as well.

So, as the first question to start this thread. I have to ask for a quick rundown of how An- verbs work. How do they fit into a sentence with the separable prefix and what are some other separable prefix verbs and how do they work in sentences as well.

Danke schön und Tschuß!

Good luck
Your Question:
As a german, i have to say, i have absolutely no clue.
Is there such thing as a "anverb"? Or do you mean "adverb"?
If you mean Adverb, i still have to say, no clue!

Adverbs say something about a word or a complete sentence.
Like
The man there got no shoes.
Der Mann dort besitzt keine Schuhe.

You made that good.
Das hast du gut gemacht.

It describes "something" about a word or a sentence.
Like you could write
Das hast du gemacht. (You did it)
Das hast du >gut< gemacht (you did it good)

Mein-deutschbuch.de

I dont know.

Tschüss :p

Edited by: nCrek

I'm not going to go in about grammar, I don't think there's any point trying to learn German via forum posting. It takes someone more than a native German speaker to teach you German, because native speakers don't have to worry about grammar. You'd best find a person that knows about grammar in general (lexical categories, cases, tenses, moods, etc) and speaks German plus your native language fluently.

I wish I could recommend buying a beginner's German textbook but I'm not sure if you really could get much out of it without a teacher that is able to expand and answer all the questions.

The other option is just to learn German as you'd learn English as non-native speaker. There's an entire web full of German content because they're slightly arrogant about their language and not giving up in front of English even on the internet. So learn some of the grammar and go browse German web content and why not even interact on some forums.

You already know something. Learn the theoretical side from online resources, this wikipedia article actually gives a good outline of the language. It is very important to first learn cases (accusative and dative) and their corresponding pronouns very, very thoroughly if you want to be able to naturally make sense of the sentences and to write grammatically correct German. Cases can be a hard concept to grasp for an English speaker since it doesn't really have anything alike (besides who - whom which most natives shrug off and call others grammar nazis ).

But German has lots of rules few exceptions. Master the cases, pronoun tables, -en verbs in different tenses and you're pretty much set to expand by reading and interacting.

But I want to comment on some of the translations, perhaps to support my point about teaching languages online like this. Note that I'm not a native English or German speaker but I've learned German for 8 years and English I speak practically as well as the natives if not even better in some respect due to having learned many languages so I know my way around grammatical concepts.

Is there such thing as a "anverb"? Or do you mean "adverb"?

You totally missed the point about an-verbs. He didn't mean adverbs, but verbs that you use "an" with. For example anschauen.

Ich shaue etwas an. (an separated)
Schau mich an! (imperative mood)
Ich muss etwas anschauen.
Ich habe etwas angeschaut. (note how we place "ge" with these verbs)

The man there got no shoes.
Der Mann dort besitzt keine Schuhe.
You made that good.
Das hast du gut gemacht.

No offense but you aren't translating these entirely accurately into English either. Note the difference:

Der Mann dort besitzt keine Schuhe.
The man there owns no shoes. (does not own any)

Der Mann dort hat keine Schuhe.
The man there has no shoes. (is not wearing any)

Du hast das gut gemacht.
You made that good. (YOU, opposed to someone else)

Das hast du gut gemacht.
That you made good. (THAT, opposed to something else you did)

Again, there's not really an easy way to learn a language and I have little experience in anything else besides learning in school that is probably the most natural and surefire way. If you can hold on until you reach university I'm sure they'll have some courses available.

Edited by: shadowflar3

shadowflar3 wrote: You totally missed the point about an-verbs. He didn't mean adverbs, but verbs that you use "an" with. For example anschauen. Ich shaue etwas an. (an separated)
Schau mich an! (imperative mood)
Ich muss etwas anschauen.
Ich habe etwas angeschaut. (note how we place "ge" with these verbs)

That is what I meant, thank you.

shadowflar3 wrote: If you can hold on until you reach university I'm sure they'll have some courses available.

Yes, but my natural response to that is, "I have no patience learn it now!". Which is how I've gotten to that point that I am at.

I'm not looking to become fluent from this thread but there are a few things I can't seem to find out exacts about. Such as the pronunciation of "Ich", I have gained the habit of making it sound more like an "e" sound followed by a long "h" sound. However, I have heard many people say it like the ish in dish or fish, or rather an "e" sound instead of an "i" sound.

Looking at the quote above I also realize one thing I may have asked on this thread is what is the difference between "Dort" and "Da".

So this is more of a thread for little questions like that, not "Could someone explain the difference between dative, accusative, nominative and ddsfsgdgsgsfominative in a 10 paragraph essay? Thank you."

I can wait for college for proper learning, but the pursuit of knowledge is a beautiful thing is it not? I intend to pursue whenever I can.

"Da" can be local (preposition), like "there", but it can also have a temporal meaning "von da an", "from there on"

"Dort" is simpler, also meaning "there", but its meaning can't change. Dort is simply there or over there.
Both can be used with something closer/visible (like pointing at something, going "Dort!" "Over there!" as well as with a remote place. It's really a matter of preference. I'd say "dort" is a bit more old fashioned, but both are in use.

Good for you to start learning before going to college. I did the same thing with Spanish and the first year at University was basically a free term for me. Not a whole lot of work ^^ I suggest getting some German literature, because reading is probably the best way to start learning. I prefer cartoons, because I can read the pictures, if I don't understand the text.

SinKing wrote: Good for you to start learning before going to college. I did the same thing with Spanish and the first year at University was basically a free term for me. Not a whole lot of work ^^ I suggest getting some German literature, because reading is probably the best way to start learning. I prefer cartoons, because I can read the pictures, if I don't understand the text.

I learn by listening to german music. The only music I listen to is german, such as Rammstein ( of course), Sido, Seeed, Deichkind, Cro. I also watch german gamer's on youtube such as GLP and tabletennisgamer. Not to mention whenever I hear german spoken on tv, which is rarely, I always watch it a few times over and try to spell out in my mind what they're saying.

So I do spend much time observing the language and trying to immerse myself in it. It certainly helps with comprehension when you repeatedly hear a phrase over and over again to a nice beat. Then you can easily break it down and try to learn via reverse engineering it. (A little crazy of a way to learn but effective).

So this is more of a thread for little questions like that, not "Could someone explain the difference between dative, accusative, nominative and ddsfsgdgsgsfominative in a 10 paragraph essay? Thank you."

Sorry, I didn't mean to offend you. I'll be on my way then after this post.

Such as the pronunciation of "Ich", I have gained the habit of making it sound more like an "e" sound followed by a long "h" sound. However, I have heard many people say it like the ish in dish or fish, or rather an "e" sound instead of an "i" sound.

There's no "s" in the pronunciation at all. You don't bring your teeth together, you make the "ch" by clutching the air stream as you move the back of your tongue very close to your palate. The "i" or "e" is pretty hard to explain because vowels aren't exact in English pronunciation. The "i" in "ich" as well as every other German word is pronounced as for example "ea" in "easy" (only a tad shorter of course).
Don't be fooled by Rammstein and Der Untergang. German can be spoken also in softer manner without the brutal strength in "r", "sch", "ch" sounds even though the they are still produced by the same principle as the stronger versions. You could maybe find some German soap opera such as Marienhof on Youtube and watch it briefly to get a better scale of German speakers. But I reckon the channels you use to listen to German are good and probably suit your interests well.

Good for you to start learning before going to college. I did the same thing with Spanish and the first year at University was basically a free term for me. Not a whole lot of work ^^

But note that that "free year" (Spanish wise) was already lost when you learned Spanish on your spare time. Also learning on your own can often be quite bit slower than with a proper teacher. I'm not saying it's bad, it just doesn't make the amount of work go magically away. I've learn Japanese on my own but I'm not very good at it. So I knew a few phrases and know my hiragana but that took me a year on-and-off while I could have learned the same in single course in university.

Learning on your own makes sense to me if you can later attend courses that strengthen and expand your skills rather than use what you know just to slack on some beginner courses.

Another good way to learn a language is to watch movies with subtitles in that language. It may take a while, but you start grasping the word order and what particular (often repeated) words mean.

shadowflar3 wrote:
Learning on your own makes sense to me if you can later attend courses that strengthen and expand your skills rather than use what you know just to slack on some beginner courses.

Well, I got a degree in Spanish Literature out of it. Generally speaking, the first half year at college is meant for orientation anyways. I spent three months in Spain while waiting for my studies to begin, so no time was lost.

Edited by: SinKing

Well, I got a degree in Spanish Literature out of it. Generally speaking, the first half year at college is meant for orientation anyways. I spent three months in Spain while waiting for my studies to begin, so no time was lost.

You living in Spain and what you gain from that has zero relevance to OP's situation. He doesn't have a chance to go live in an environment where you need to use the language and everybody speak practically nothing but it. Go brag elsewhere if you must, but some people are here to ask and to give advice.

Yup, it all worked for me - and you still don't speak Japanese...

Me learning Japanese with online resources only and on my spare time in my home country on the other hand is comparable to OP's situation.

I don't think anything of your attempt to insult me. I would have learned it by now if I ever thought I actually needed to. I was just a bit anime and Japanese culture crazed at the time but that passed. I speak five languages, Japanese not one of them and that is fine. It's not a competition but I'm confident you have nothing over me language-wise.

With multiple sets of dedicated alphabet/writing systems Japanese is also multiple times harder than Spanish and comparing our situation is just so out of place on many levels it's hard for me to consider you know much about languages.

Edited by: shadowflar3

lolol

Did you delete your "I'm not arrogant, just better than you" tag, before or after replying?
If anything, your assumption that I wasted time and slacked on my education was insulting.

I deleted that Japanese addition only a minute after I wrote it. Apparently you were faster.

Edited by: SinKing

I deleted that Japanese addition only a minute after I wrote it. Apparently you were faster.

Mean what you say, say what you mean. I just happened to refresh the page at the right moment I guess.

I've removed that silly signature long time ago from both IndieDB and ModDB profiles. I have little idea why it apparently still pops up every now and then for some people, this is all I can do.

Perhaps your argument should be taken elsewhere and the thread could be returned to the purpose it was meant for at first.

;P