Help with German grammar??

Question

I need to know how German grammar works. Here's an example:

Das Gebäude stürmen!

When translated with the literal meaning, it means "The building storm." But it means "Storm the building!" Am I being confusing?

Like if you were a soldier and you said, "Storm that building!"

Why is it backward? Can someone please help me understand this?

I need to know so it will be easier for me to learn German. I know some German now and I could probably carry on a conversation if I knew how to organize my sentences correctly so I wouldn't be confusing the person I was talking to.

And why are words like Gebäude capitalized when they're right in the middle of a sentence and it means "building"?

I was reading the diary of a WWII German soldier and his sergeant had said, "Das Gebäude stürmen!"

I know "das" is a form of "the" in German and I knew what gebäude and stürmen meant so it sounded to me like the literal would be "The building storm."

I personally don't think it's an incomplete command. It's short and too the point. "Storm the building!" What more do you need to say? If you have to explain why you're storming the building it would waste time.

Both sides of my family came from Germany but my parents and grandparents were born here in the US. I want to learn German to connect with my heritage because I want to go to Germany some day.

My grandma speaks German but she says she's been speaking it naturally for so long that she forgot the grammar rules to it.

Answer 1

In military parlance, but not only there, German has the option to express an urgent command in the infinitive form. That sounds much more peremptory in German than the imperative.

So instead of "Zieh die Jacke an!" you can say "Die Jacke anziehen!" if you don't mind sounding extremely rude.

Instructions in user manuals are often given in the same way, for shortness and precision.

If you quote any infinitive, in German you put the object(s) in front, unlike in English, where you say "to shut the door"; in German you'd say "die Tür schließen" another example is "jemandem etwas geben" = to give something to somebody.

Part of the German spelling regulations is that nouns are capitalized ALWAYS.

Answer 2

Typically, to have the verb last in a command, is the word order of written German, that you see on notices, and in manuals. It is like English "the battery must be inserted". It is conjugated for the formal form. There is another usage of the formal form, the one used to issue polite requests "stürmen sie bitte das Gebäude", where you would put the verb first. That would have been inappropriate here - it is just too polite for a commander to issue to troops. It can never mean "the building storm", because stürmen is a verb, and it is conjugated for plural. Nouns are identified in German by being capitalized, which brings me to your next question.

Nouns (concrete or abstract) are allways capitalized in German.

Never try to translate too directly. Try to think in German. If you must translate, translate sentences. As far as world languages go, German is not that different from English, so bear with the snags that you do find.

Viel Glück (good luck)...

ps: note Glück (which means luck, and is therefore a noun) is capitalized.

Answer 3

Placing of words in sentences is exactly the same. De man is boos en zucht - dutch Der mann ist wütend und seufzt - German *i dont know german well, so i might';ve ****** it up here, but don't think so) To be honest, i'd think german is harder than dutch. There's not so much of a problem with different genders in words, female and male both have the same article (de) and words without a gender have 'het'. There isn't a lot up to it, dutch students can mostly already read and understand german, so you will be able to do the same by knowing the german language. Most people learn by practice, so read dutch books or watch dutch movies.

Answer 4

to storm the building = das Gebäude stürmen.
stürmen/storm = infinitive
das Gebäude/the building = accusative case
all nouns (here: Gebäude) are capitalized no matter whether they stand at the beginning of a sentence or anywhere else... this is what makes german so clear : you always know what is a noun and what is not. in your english example, storm could also be a noun (a windstorm, a snowstorm), but the context provides us with the necessary information to understand that here it's a verb. in german, you don't need context to understand that, the capital letter makes automatically reference to a noun.
why is "stürmen" at the end? because all infinitives come at the end in german.

Mittag essen = to have lunch.
Pizza essen = to eat pizza.

if you wanted an imperative sentence, like with your soldier and all, it'd be: Stürmen Sie das Gebäude, with a head-verb and pronoun on 2nd position to mark the order.

Answer 5

It's an incomplete command grammatically, not practically. Like if you said in English "Storm building!"--it would be clear but not grammtically correct. (Izzpill explained it way better than I could.)

German has (in some ways) a more flexible word-order than English. Because of the conjugations (changes in verb form) and declensions (changes in noun/article/adjective form), plus the fact that nouns are capitalized, the words themselves give more information about who does what, so you don't need the word order for that (at least not as much). So you can change certain sentences around for emphasis.

Ex.: Die Frau sieht den Mann. Since it's "den" Mann, we know that "Mann is the object, and Frau is the subject.

Die Frau sieht der Mann. Since it's "der" Mann, it must be the subject, so this sentence actually means "The man sees the woman." I don't know if/why anyone would really say that, but it wouldn't be ambiguous.

Answer 6

Nouns are always capitalized in German, something that would help a lot in English since many of our words look exactly the same whether they are nouns or verbs; 'fish' for example.

"Das Gebäude stürmen" seems to be an incomplete command or suggestion, which should start with "Lassen uns" or "Let us." Usually commands start with the verb,and in this case would be "Stürmen (Sie) das Gebäude!"

PS: Mea culpa - I forgot all about that construction with the command at the end. Time for another trip to Germany...

Answer 7

Your literal translation is wrong. A knowledge of grammar is essential to learning a foriegn language once you've passed a certain age.

You have taken the noun (Gebaeude) and made it an adjective and the verb (stuermen) and made it a noun. So you do not have a literal translation. Literal would be closer to "The building to storm." which is closer to the actual meaning.

In the meantime, german nouns are capitalized unlike english where its mainly proper nouns and the beginning of sentences.

Sounds like you need to check out some formal instruction in German.

Word order in German in different. For fun read Mark Twain's essay on the German language, very fun when you start to get frustrated.

Part of how you plan to learn the language will also depend on your purpose. Are you going to be a tourist, a student, working on buisness, etc.

Noch ein Bier, bitte. (the most important phrase.)

Answer 8

i am german and if you need help, you can email me.