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German conjugation with 1st and 2nd pers.

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shadowzoid
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 Message 1 of 9
07 May 2009 at 11:02pm | IP Logged 
Through my study, I was under the impression that verbs have an -en ending for infinitives and 2nd and 3rd person. And that verbs have an -e ending for 1st person. This applies to some verbs like:

Ich Mochte
Sie Mochten

Ich Verstehe
Sie Verstehen

yet, when I get to machen and kaufen. the Pimsleur German says that "I would like to buy" translates to "Ich mochte kaufen" why does it end in -en, not -e?

also, when I want to say "with you" i say "mit ihnen" instead of "mit Sie". whats the difference between Sie and Ihnen?

And one more thing. How do I know when to add "the"? The Pimsleur course says that in order to say "in the hotel", i say "in Hotel" instead of "in das Hotel". but to say "where is beethoven streed", I say "Wo is die Beethoven Strasse". why?

and how do I know when to use "im" "am" or "in". dont they all mean the same thing. Like, why would I say "Im die Beethoven Strasse" instead of "am die Beethoven Strasse"?

Edited by shadowzoid on 07 May 2009 at 11:09pm

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betaquarx
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 Message 2 of 9
07 May 2009 at 11:38pm | IP Logged 
Kaufen does end in "en" because it stands in the infinitive form in this sentence.

"with you" translates to "mit Ihnen" because you are in the dative case (so you ask "with whom?")


Maybe this can help you a little bit:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_grammar


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customic
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 Message 3 of 9
07 May 2009 at 11:40pm | IP Logged 
I'll try to answer some of your questions, although I am not a German speaker.

* We say "Ich möchte kaufen", because we have two verbs here and the verb
möchten is a modal verb, which we conjugate, whereas kaufen must be left in its
infinitive form. This applies to all modal verbs (sollen, wollen, können) and some
other as well.

* We say "mit Ihnen", because "mit" requires a Dative form of a noun, pronoun
etc which follows it.

* Actually, I would say "auf die Beethoven Straße"

EDIT: I was too late, betaquarx was the first to answer, but still I hope that my
answer will be useful as well :-)

Edited by customic on 07 May 2009 at 11:46pm

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jeff_lindqvist
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 Message 4 of 9
07 May 2009 at 11:52pm | IP Logged 
This infinitive topic must be contagious, as it has been brought up at least once earlier this week... (but for Swedish).

I honestly fail to see how one can confuse things, since it works the same way in English, German and Swedish - at least on this very basic level. You say "I would like to buy", not buys/buying/bought or anything else, just the basic form.
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Bao
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 Message 5 of 9
08 May 2009 at 7:47am | IP Logged 
It's not "In Hotel" but "ins Hotel". That is a shortened form of "in das Hotel"
Same goes for "im Hotel" which is shortened for "in dem Hotel", "am Hotel" is "an dem Hotel"

'An' and 'in' are only contracted to 'am' and 'im' when the next word would have been 'dem', which effectively is the case for masculine and neutral nouns (in the dative case, because both particles require the dative).
We actually use our articles for most nouns (I think I still overuse 'the' in English), but sometimes it's difficult to notice because of the contracted forms.

('in' covers mostly the same situations as in English, 'an' covers expressions like 'at/beside/near to'. I have no idea how to learn those particles other than by exposure and repetition.)
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Paramecium
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 Message 6 of 9
08 May 2009 at 9:16pm | IP Logged 
customic wrote:
* Actually, I would say "auf die Beethoven Straße"


Just a small correction. It is: "auf der Beethoven Straße"
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Marc Frisch
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 Message 7 of 9
09 May 2009 at 4:29pm | IP Logged 
Paramecium wrote:
customic wrote:
* Actually, I would say "auf die Beethoven Straße"


Just a small correction. It is: "auf der Beethoven Straße"


Depends, "auf die Beethoven-Straße" would be accusative.
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Paramecium
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 Message 8 of 9
09 May 2009 at 6:06pm | IP Logged 
You are right but this form with "AUF" is very very less used. There are not very much examples where you will use this combination. Mostly you will see the combination of accusative and "STRAßE" with "IN"

For example: "Ich ziehe in die Beethovenstraße."



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