New German Living Language eTutor
  • petervs August 2012
    Dear Friends,

    please allow me to introduce myself.  My name is Peter, a new German Living Language eTutor, and a native German speaker.   Since 1994, I’ve been living in the U.S., originally coming here to get a Masters (U. of Oregon), then receiving my Ph.D. in 2002 from the University of Wisconsin in 18th and 20th Century German literature.  Now, my American wife and our dog reside in Long Island City, New York. Among my interests are literature, history and film, most recently in films by Werner Herzog, and enjoy watching international news, including Al Jazeera, BBC and CNN International .

    I'm looking forward to answering your questions about German grammar, the German language and culture in general, and hope to hear from you very soon! 

    All best, Peter
  • Christopher August 2012
    Willkommen!!
  • petervs August 2012
    Vielen Dank!
  • MATTL August 2012
    Willkommen Peter.  I signed up for the 9/5 tutoring session.  Hoping it will be successful!!
  • petervs September 2012
    Bis dann! Peter
  • Roe November 2012
    Allo Peter!  Du bist ein gut Lehrer. :)  
  • Christopher November 2012
    Here's a tip on German adjective endings. Imagine that the adjective wants you to know the gender of the noun. If you see der, you know it's masculine. But with ein, it could be masculine or neuter. So an adjective that follows (m.) ein takes -er, like the -er in der, and an adjective that follows (n.) ein takes -es, almost like das:

    ein guter Lehrer
    ein gutes Buch

    With der and das, the adjective can be lazy (or "weak" as you'll often see these endings called.)

    der gute Lehrer
    das gute Buch

    With feminine die and eine, it's always -e:

    die gute Lehrerin
    eine gute Lehrerin

    Things change with different cases, but the same principal (mostly) applies.
  • Roe December 2012
    Ein guter Lehrer
    Ein gutes Buch

    der gute Lehrer
    das gute Buch

    die gute Lehrerin
    eine gute Lehrerin

    This is great.  Thanks for the clarification Christopher. :)  Du bist auch ein guter Lehrer!  Und ich habe ein gutes Buch Deutsche. :)
  • Christopher December 2012
    I remember having that aha moment in high school German, when confronted with all of these crazy German adjective endings in tables. All of a sudden the labels "strong" and "weak" made sense.

    It's not a perfect system, and I certainly manage to screw up my German adjective endings pretty regularly, but I hope it helps a little bit!
  • KayD325 January 29
    Have you ever seen/used the Oklahoma pneumonic for the adjective endings. It helped me a lot. 

    I am trying to understand when gerne is used with möchten and when it is not. is it somewhat of an option?

    Gut mahl 
  • Christopher January 29
    What's the Oklahoma mnemonic? I've never heard of that.

  • KayD325 January 29
    Glad to share.
    Look a the adjective endings after the definite article (der, die, das ),All have the weak -e or -en endings.  Consider the singular, M, N, F in nom and acc cases all erxcept masculine, acc end in  -e  In a table, this  forms the shape of the state of Oklahoma. all other endings, including plural are -en

    When you consider the situation with the indefinite article ein the pattern is quite similar except the adjectives inside the outline of Oklahoma now all have the standard strong endings. Once again outside all are -en 

    PS Auch Ich möchte gerne   RESE NESE  MRMN SRSR for remembering  definite article endings and the stand alone articles

    _ESE NE-E  MRMN SRSR for the indefinite articlkes

    Gut Mahl
     Martin

Add a Comment