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Ignoring du/ihr forms in German learning? | ||
Tags: Polite/Informal Forms | German | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages |  | |
| Julie Heptaglot Senior Member PolandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6848 days ago 1251 posts - 1733 votes  5 sounds Speaks: Polish*, EnglishB2, GermanC2, SpanishB2, Dutch, Swedish, French | Message 25 of 31 25 December 2013 at 12:07am | IP Logged | |||||
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I can only agree with the excellent points made by many posters in this thread.
Generally, it doesn't make a lot of sense to learn conjugations partially, especially if they are not that complicated, with huge irregularities, and even suppletive forms. The German conjugation is fairly easy (even if it may not seem so at the beginning), and it actually gets even less complicated for past and future tense (apart from the need to learn the irregular past verb forms as in English). If you really want to skip something, you might not need the 'ihr' form that much - but it really doesn't save you a lot of work, and 'ihr' is very much useful as well :). However, you do need both du and Sie form! Using one form instead of the other is in many situations just awkward. When I was 18 year old or so, I took part in an exchange project for Polish and German students. I still remember the moment when I went to the room of German girls, planning to ask them to do something together. I went in and I asked... using the formal 'Sie' form. They laughed hard... They weren't mean and they knew that I was just a beginner in German but still, this sounded so unnatural to them that they couldn't help laughing... So no, I don't recommend adressing everyone with 'Sie' :). Frankly, I think it's much more important to adhere to such important social conventions than to aim for 100% correct verb forms.
Yeah, it's pretty annoying in the beginning. At some point, it does get natural, if it's any consolation. Edited by Julie on 25 December 2013 at 12:08am 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4652 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 26 of 31 25 December 2013 at 12:06pm | IP Logged | |||||
Because it was picked for the convenience of how German people speak, not how English people speak. 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Henkkles Triglot Senior Member Finland Joined 4198 days ago 544 posts - 1141 votes Speaks: Finnish*, English, Swedish Studies: Russian | Message 27 of 31 25 December 2013 at 12:18pm | IP Logged | |||||
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The overlapping is the biggest problem I've encountered learning German. It'll get better eventually.
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| Zireael Triglot Senior Member Poland Joined 4596 days ago 518 posts - 636 votes Speaks: Polish*, EnglishB2, Spanish Studies: German, Sign Language, Tok Pisin, Arabic (Yemeni), Old English | Message 28 of 31 25 December 2013 at 3:18pm | IP Logged | |||||
It didn't, not for me. Actually, the amount of overlap and my hearing difficulties (really hard to differentiate between dem/den) is what led me to my hiatus in German. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Gemuse Senior Member Germany Joined 4027 days ago 818 posts - 1189 votes Speaks: English Studies: German | Message 29 of 31 25 December 2013 at 5:36pm | IP Logged | |||||
That is another issue. Often its very hard to distinguish. Even when I pick audio from the A1/A2 level textbook, I sometimes cannot distinguish between the en/em (and sometimes er) endings when hearing. Even after I've heard it multiple times, and read the transcript, I cannot make it out. Its like the listners brain has to automatically fill in the correct ending. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| lingoleng Senior Member Germany Joined 5243 days ago 605 posts - 1290 votes | Message 30 of 31 26 December 2013 at 4:27pm | IP Logged | |||||
That is a good observation, and instead of seeing it as a problem you should try to use it to your advantage. In most cases accusative or dative depend on the verb. Each verb has standard cases it is used with. If you make it a habit to study not only the isolated verbs but also their typical cases some random m or n won't bother you any longer. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6030 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin | Message 31 of 31 26 December 2013 at 5:44pm | IP Logged | |||||
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It helps to memorize just a handful of verbs or prepositions that take dative (der-to-dem, die-to-der, das-to-dem). Memorize just one short sentence for each verb, like "Er hilft mir" (helfen takes only the dative). This will help make some of that grammar more automatic for you.
Dative verbs: helfen, gehören, nützen, schmecken, zuhören, weh tun, fehlen... Prepositions are also tricky. Example sentences can help: prepositions and Dativ/Akkusativ PDF - Dativ Edited by Sunja on 26 December 2013 at 8:46pm 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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