Need help from a fluent German speaker please?

Question

How do you know wether to put Die, Das, or Der in front of a word. I heard it has to do if it is femanine, masculine, or neutral but how can you tell by looking at the word?

Also, I noticed when you add words together sometimes the vowel turns into an accented vowel? Like adding Chicken (huhn) and bread (brot) it turns into Huhnchenbrot, except the u has little dots over it. Why is this and is this every time?

When you are using the word for "in" are you supposed to use "auf" or "in"?

Thank's for all the help!

!Jake

Answer 1

This is what makes German a difficult language to learn...basically you just have to memorize what the article (Die-feminine, Das-neutral, Der-masculine) is. Many of them make sense like "der Mann" (the man), but then there's stuff like "das Madchen" (the girl) which makes no sense.

As far as the question about the accent, the umlaut, I'm not sure. And as far as the rest of the question, I would need to know the context...my German is rusty...you'll probably get some better answers, but I hope this was somewhat helpful. Viel Gluck!

Answer 2

I'm not a native speaker, but I think I can answer your questions:

Words being masculine, feminine, or neuter is mostly arbitrary. You really have to simply memorize that trains are masculine, tables are feminine, water is neuter. However, some groups of things usually or always have the same gender; for example, diminuitive things (ending in -chen, -lein, etc.) like Mädchen are always neuter.

The process you describe in your second paragraph is called Umlaut in German and vowel mutation more generally. We do it a little in English too... 'man' vs. 'men', for example. In English, though, we change the vowel entirely; in German, the change is marked with those two dots (also called Umlaut) over the relevant vowel.

German prepositions are another thing that an English speaker simply needs to memorize - German makes some distinctions that we just don't. For example, we use the same word if a picture is 'on' a wall or 'on' a table, but German uses 'an' for the wall (it's vertical) and 'auf' for a table (it's horizontal. 'In' covers a lot of the same territory in both languages, but there are some differences.

Good luck with your study of German; I hope this helps some.

Answer 3

The annoying thing about die-der-das... no hard and fast rule. My mom (native English speaker) just gave up - people'll know you're a foreigner but at least they'll understand you. Otherwise, you mostly gotta memorize - sucks huh? But, one tip:
Words ending in -heit, -keit, or -zeit are always feminine.

About the umlaut on huehnchen - I think that has more to do with the -chen then the brot. Words get umlauts according to a few patterns - like, with comparitive (as in, strong -> stronger) if you can add an umlaut to the main vowel, you do. Like, stark -> staerker. Also, a lot of nouns take an umlaut when you make them plural, sometimes with and sometimes without an added or changed ending. Ach, more memorization!

About auf/in... hmmm, right now I can only think of ways for auf to mean on or to. My advice would be to use "in" for the English "In" under most instances, but that's just off the top of my head, sorry.

German is such a language for memorization - I'm sorry :( But you will get the feel of it after a while; it just takes time! Good luck :)

Answer 4

The other answers already addressed the "der, die, das" thing. There are some guidelines, but a majority of them simply have to be learned.

The umlaut (little dots) thing plus the -chen is a form of deminutive. You do add them every time, unless the middle vowel is an "e" already.

It is the equivalent of "kitty" for cat, or "Chucky" for Chuck or Charles.

The -chen is usally used to denote something smaller. Brot=Bread, Broetchen=rolls (little breads)
Dog=Hund, Puppy=Huendchen.

The umlaut modifies the vowel it is placed over by adding an "e" sound to it and making it very slightly longer. The umlaut got its origin in the middle ages, and was originally written as a tiny "e" above the letter, but this got "shorthanded" into dots. This is commonly taught by good german teachers, but I provided a link to wikipedia so you can read for yourself.

Answer 5

I'm not a native German speaker, but I'm a German teacher and II can tell you this. Words that end in UNG are always feminine; words that come from other languages are always going to be neutral. By the way, the previous answer is quite complete and accurate.

Answer 6

1. There are some rules about the ending of the noun that tells you the definite article (e.g. nouns ending in "-ung" are almost always feminie) but there's no magic universal rule that works for everything.
2. That's actually because you've added the diminuitive ending "-chen."
3. It depends on the context. If it is "in" as in physical location, then "in" pretty much does it. However, if you mean to say "in German" then you say "auf Deutsch."