Lesson 1: Sentence Structure in Main Clauses - Learn German Grammar for Beginners (A1 / A2)

Summary

In this introductory German grammar lesson for beginners, the instructor emphasizes the importance of sentence structure, particularly the placement of the verb in main clauses. The lesson distinguishes between two sentence types, A and B, with Type A using the subject-verb-object order and Type B starting with the verb for questions and commands. The instructor provides examples and exercises to illustrate the concepts, aiming to help learners understand the basics of German sentence construction without prior knowledge of vocabulary.

Takeaways

• 😀 The video is an introductory German grammar lesson for complete beginners.
• 🏫 The instructor emphasizes the importance of understanding German sentence structure, especially for main clauses.
• 🔍 German differentiates between main clauses, which can stand alone, and subordinate clauses, which cannot.
• 📚 The general formula for German sentence structure in main clauses is similar to English: Subject + Verb (2nd position) + Object/Adverbials.
• 📍 The position of the verb in a German sentence is crucial and is fixed in the second position for main clauses.
• 🔄 The positions of the subject and other sentence elements can be switched to emphasize different parts of the sentence.
• 📝 Sentence Type A includes statements and 'W' questions, with the verb in the second position.
• 🗣️ Sentence Type B includes yes/no questions and commands, where the verb is placed in the first position.
• 📖 The instructor uses example sentences that phonetically resemble English to aid passive understanding for learners.
• 📝 The lesson includes exercises to help learners identify the type of sentence and the position of the verb.
• 🔑 The key takeaway is to remember where to place the verb in a sentence depending on whether it is Sentence Type A or B.

Q & A

What is the main focus of the first lesson on German grammar for complete beginners?

The main focus of the first lesson is on German sentence structure, specifically how to arrange the elements of a sentence to make sense in German, particularly in main clauses.

Why is understanding German sentence structure considered challenging for speakers of other languages?

Understanding German sentence structure is challenging because it requires knowing where to place the verb, which is often different from the sentence structure in other languages.

What is the general formula for German sentence structure in main clauses?

The general formula for German sentence structure in main clauses is similar to English, starting with the subject, followed by the conjugated verb in the second position, and then other elements such as objects or descriptions.

What is the significance of the verb's position in a German sentence?

The verb's position in a German sentence is significant because it is fixed in the second position in main clauses, regardless of the subject and other additions, which can be switched to emphasize different elements.

What are the two types of sentences discussed in the lesson, and how do they differ in verb placement?

The two types of sentences discussed are sentence type A and sentence type B. In sentence type A, the verb is placed in the second position, while in sentence type B, the verb is placed in the first position.

What is a 'W question' in English, and how does it relate to German sentence structure?

A 'W question' in English is a question that starts with a 'W' word like 'who', 'what', 'when', 'why', 'how', 'where'. In German, these questions also start with 'W' words and follow sentence type A structure with the verb in the second position.

What is the difference between a statement and a 'W question' in terms of sentence structure in German?

In German, a statement and a 'W question' both follow sentence type A structure, with the verb in the second position. The difference lies in the intent and the presence of a question word in 'W questions'.

What is a 'yes-no question' in German, and how is it structured?

A 'yes-no question' in German is a closed-ended question that typically requires a simple 'yes' or 'no' answer. It follows sentence type B structure, starting with the verb in the first position.

How does the position of the verb change in commands or imperatives in German?

In commands or imperatives in German, the verb is placed in the first position, following sentence type B structure, which is different from the usual second position in statements and 'W questions'.

What is the key takeaway from this lesson on German sentence structure?

The key takeaway is to remember where to place the verb in different types of sentences in German. This understanding is crucial for constructing sentences in German, especially in main clauses.

Outlines

00:00

🎬 Introduction and Lesson Overview

The video begins with a welcoming introduction, urging new viewers to watch the introductory video for better understanding of the lesson sequence. The focus is on the first lesson in German grammar for complete beginners, emphasizing the challenge of constructing basic German sentences without prior knowledge of various grammatical concepts. The primary topic is German sentence structure, particularly the placement of verbs in main clauses.

05:02

📝 German Sentence Structure Basics

The explanation starts with a comparison between English and German main clauses, highlighting the importance of the verb's position. In German main clauses, the verb typically occupies the second position, similar to English. The structure generally follows Subject-Verb-Object order, but the subject and additional elements (like objects and descriptors) can be rearranged depending on emphasis. An example using the sentence 'I read the book' is provided to illustrate this concept.

10:05

❓ W-Questions and Verb Placement

The video discusses W-questions (open-ended questions starting with words like 'who,' 'what,' 'when') in German. These questions still place the verb in the second position, following the question word. The example 'Who is that?' (Wer ist das?) demonstrates this structure. The summary notes that statements and W-questions both fall under sentence type A, characterized by the verb in the second position.

🔄 Sentence Type B: Yes/No Questions and Commands

In contrast to sentence type A, sentence type B includes yes/no questions and commands where the verb is positioned first. Examples provided include 'Are you Katrin?' (Bist du Katrin?) and 'Give me the money' (Gib mir das Geld). The section emphasizes that recognizing the sentence type is crucial for correct verb placement.

🧠 Practice Examples and Pronunciation Tips

A set of practice sentences is presented to help learners identify sentence types and verb positions. Examples include commands (Hilf mir bitte - 'Help me please'), yes/no questions (Siehst du mich? - 'Do you see me?'), W-questions (Wann kommst du? - 'When do you come?'), and statements (Er lernt Deutsch - 'He studies German'). Each example is analyzed for its sentence type and verb placement, reinforcing the lesson's key points.

📚 Recap and Next Steps

The lesson concludes with a recap of the key points: identifying sentence types (A or B) and correctly positioning the verb. It reassures learners not to worry about the specifics of vocabulary or grammatical terms at this stage. The next lesson will cover verb conjugation in the present tense, both regular and irregular verbs. The video ends with a call to action to subscribe and like the video if it was helpful.

Keywords

💡German Grammar

German Grammar refers to the set of structural rules governing the composition of sentences, phrases, and words in the German language. In the video, the focus is on teaching German sentence structure to beginners, which is central to understanding how to communicate effectively in German. The script emphasizes the importance of sentence structure in forming comprehensible sentences, especially for speakers of other languages.

💡Sentence Structure

Sentence Structure is the arrangement of words and phrases in a sentence to convey meaning effectively. The video discusses the specific order of elements in German main clauses, highlighting that the verb typically occupies the second position, which is crucial for beginners to grasp when constructing sentences in German.

💡Main Clauses

Main Clauses are independent clauses that can stand alone and express a complete thought. The script differentiates between main clauses and subordinate clauses, noting that the former does not require the latter to make sense, and is the starting point for teaching sentence structure in German.

💡Subordinate Clauses

Subordinate Clauses are dependent clauses that cannot stand alone as a sentence and usually provide additional information to a main clause. While the video focuses on main clauses, it mentions subordinate clauses to illustrate their relationship with main clauses in complex sentence structures.

💡Verb Position

Verb Position is the placement of the verb within a sentence, which is a critical aspect of German sentence structure. The video script explains that in main clauses, the verb is usually in the second position, regardless of the subject and object order, which is a fundamental rule for beginners learning German.

💡Conjugated Verb

A Conjugated Verb is a verb that has been altered to express tense, mood, person, or number. The script mentions that the verb in German sentences is conjugated to agree with the subject, and understanding this concept is essential for forming grammatically correct sentences.

💡Direct Object

A Direct Object is the noun or pronoun that receives the action of the verb. In the context of the video, the direct object often follows the verb in English sentence structure, but in German, it can be placed before the verb to emphasize the object, as demonstrated in the example 'I read the book.'

💡W-Questions

W-Questions are interrogative sentences that begin with words like 'who,' 'what,' 'when,' 'where,' etc. The video script explains that in German, as in English, the verb is placed in the second position in W-questions, which is part of learning how to form questions in German.

💡Yes/No Questions

Yes/No Questions are inquiries that can be answered with 'yes' or 'no' or their equivalent. The script contrasts these with W-questions by pointing out that in German, the verb is placed at the beginning of the sentence for Yes/No questions, which is a key difference in sentence structure.

💡Imperatives

Imperatives are forms of verbs used to give commands or make requests. The video script discusses how imperatives in German require the verb to be placed at the beginning of the sentence, which is a specific use of verb position in sentence construction.

💡Pronunciation

Pronunciation refers to the way words are articulated when spoken. The script touches on German pronunciation, specifically the 'sch' sound, which is similar to the English 'sh', to help learners understand and mimic the correct sounds when speaking German.

Highlights

Introduction to German grammar for complete beginners, emphasizing the importance of sentence structure.

Explanation of the challenge of arranging sentence elements in German to make sense.

The general formula for German sentence structure in main clauses, similar to English.

The subject typically starts a sentence, followed by the conjugated verb in the second position.

Other elements such as objects and descriptions can be added after the verb.

The position of the verb is fixed in the second position in main clauses.

Differentiation between main clauses and subordinate clauses, focusing on main clauses first.

Example sentences provided to illustrate sentence structure, even without vocabulary knowledge.

Introduction of sentence types A and B, with different verb positions.

In sentence type A, the verb remains in the second position for statements and W-questions.

In sentence type B, the verb is in the first position for yes/no questions and commands.

The importance of identifying sentence type to correctly place the verb.

Exercises provided to practice identifying sentence types and verb positions.

Explanation of how to ask open-ended and closed-ended questions in German.

The use of capital letters in German for nouns and names, with an example correction.

A summary of the lesson, emphasizing the key takeaway of verb placement in sentences.

Upcoming lessons will cover verb conjugation in regular present tense and irregular verbs.

Invitation to subscribe and engage with the content for further learning.

Transcripts

[Music]

hello welcome back everybody

thank you for joining me again in my

lessons in case this is the first time

you come across one of my videos

it might make sense for you to watch the

intro video

of this lesson sequence as well because

there i explain

in greater detail what my lessons are

all about whom they are targeted at

and what exactly you're going to learn

in my course but

in case you are a student who've already

seen that course i'm happy you came back

this is going to be our very first

lesson

on german grammar for complete beginners

and i have invested a lot of thinking on

what to do

first because it is very difficult to

build your first german sentences

without having studied

five to ten different grammatical

concepts already

and one of the most important ones i

find is

german sentence structure or how to

arrange

the elements of a sentence so that it

makes sense in german

and i think this is really one of the

most challenging aspects

that speakers of other languages

normally encounter when they want to

study german

where on earth am i supposed to put the

verb

that is the biggest question and i would

like to start by answering this question

at least in the case of main clauses

for today so you might already know

german as most other languages as well

differentiates between

main clauses and subordinate clauses

this lesson is on main clauses only

because they can stand

by themselves they do not need a

subordinate class

clause however you can never have a

subordinate clause without a main clause

so this is where to start

i want to show you a couple of

structural items and also example

sentences

but as a general formula

the german sentence structure is quite

similar to the english

one at least for main clauses so as in

english

you typically start with the subject of

the sentence so

who is doing the action of the sentence

then in second position this is very

important in second position

you normally have the conjugated verb

i will explain to you in the later

lesson what conjugation means in case

that term is new to you

so we put the verb in the second

position

and then sometimes you have many other

elements in the sentence as well

although

not necessarily those additions can

typically contain

objects like direct objects indirect

objects

descriptions of location time and place

and many different things so i

categorize them as

additions here but the important

learning for main clauses is

verb in second place even the position

of the subject and the additions

can be switched depending on what you

would like to emphasize

so in an english sentence i read the

book

this exactly fits this structure here i

am the subject of the sentence i am the

one doing the activity

read the activity is the verb put in the

second position here

and the book in this case is a direct

object

which is counted as an edition that

comes after

the verb in english you cannot say the

book

read i in german you can if you want to

emphasize

that it is the book that you are reading

and not the newspaper

so subject and additions might be

interchangeable the position of the verb

in the main clause

is not flexible fixed in second position

so what does this look like we can

differentiate

between two different sentence types

here i will call them sentence type a

and sentence type

b and the position of the verb according

to the sentence type

might differ like is going to differ

so let's look at our first example

sentence here

claus leaped music

clause leapt music this sentence means

klaus loves music so of course i do not

expect you to understand or build

example sentences

of your own because i haven't taught you

a single item of vocabulary yet

but i have chosen words and sentences

that have

at least by the sound of it some

similarity to english so you at least

know which

of these words corresponds to which word

in english

so music music do look quite similar and

this is how i'm going to construct my

example sentences

in the beginning so that you can

passively understand them although you

have not studied

the individual words yet okay

this is a statement a statement meaning

it has it has a full

stop at the end subject verb object

structure so in position one of the

sentence we have klaus who is the

subject the actor of this sentence

in position to our verb in conjugated

form meaning it is inflected

it corresponds to klaus as the first

person

singular in and then

music as the object of the sentence in

the third position or let's just call it

the rest where all the additions go

and same sentence structure applies when

we

ask so-called w questions w

questions in english and in german are

like in english you say

when who why how where they all start

with a w

in german as well most of them start

with w via van vivo

vas varum etc i will teach you

how to ask open-ended and closed-ended

questions in a very early lesson

for now i only want you to know where to

put the verb

in a w question you don't need to

remember any question words for the time

being

but the verb is in position two so

position one is the question word here

via who ist is our verb in position two

and das corresponding to that and then

you have a question mark

in the end to formulate the perfect

open-ended

question or w question so to summarize

statements and w questions belong to

sentence type a

and in sentence type a the conjugated

verb

will be put in the second position

of the sentence okay now i would like to

contrast that

with sentence type b

position of the verb in sentence type b

in contrast to type a

is not in the second but in the first

position of the sentence so in that case

we will start the sentence with the verb

and that is normally the case when we

ask yes no questions

meaning closed-ended questions there is

no elaborate

answer to them you typically only answer

with yes or no

so in this type of question we will

start with the verb

best meaning are you

katrin bist is the conjugated form of

the verb

to be do is the second person

singular and oh yes i am finding my

first mistake here i'm very sorry for

that

it of course needs to be spelled like

this we only use capital letters for

nouns and names like katrin so katrin is

spelled with a capital k

katrin in the third position of the

sentence so we start with the verb

and the same also applies when we

formulate

commands or so-called imperatives like

when we give

orders to someone do this get me that

bring me this also here

this was the auto correction this of

course needs to be spelled like this

in a command our typical example

sentence could be

keep mere

keep me give me the money

in that case the verb which is put in

the imperative mode

will be placed in the first position

of the sentence so generally when you

when you try to construct a main clause

the first question you should ask

yourself

am i trying to construct a sentence type

a or a sentence type b

any regular statement as we highlighted

above will be sentence type a with the

verb and second position

same as w questions and for sentence

type

b like yes no question and commands you

will have to start

the sentence with the verb

and now we can look at a couple of more

example sentences and also do some

exercises together

so in this exercise here

i would like you to identify what

sentence type we are seeing so

again very importantly i don't expect

you to be able to translate each and

every element of the sentence

and why it is formulated like this but i

chose example sentences that sound

similar to their english corresponding

versions in the vocabulary and the

phonology of the vocabulary

so i would like you to passively

understand them not yet be actively

using them

okay so we look at our first sentence

here

we see help me a bitter

health mere bitter that sentence means

help me please

and we already see in the exclamation

mark this is a command we are giving a

command

although it is very polite it is more

polite request

to someone but it is formulated in the

imperative

mode so corresponding to the tables i

just showed you this means we are having

here

sentence type b with

the verb in the first position

hilf hilf which means to help

help me help me first position of the

sentence sentence type

be second one this to me

do you see me so you see with the

with the question mark at the end we're

having a question here but which kind of

question is it

is it a yes no question or is it an

open-ended question

ah do you see me is a yes no question

therefore also sentence type

b the verb is placed in first position

so if you directly translate word by

word

the question is see you me see you me

so in english for a yes no question you

actually need this

do do in front and then you place the

actual verb later in the sentence one

more time

we do not have this corresponding

version of do in german we directly ask

see you me this to me first position

next one vancomsto

comsto when do you come or when

will you come can also be a translated

and future tense

this is a question once again however

this time we have a question word in the

beginning

when okay so

this is actually a so-called w question

which makes it sentence type

a and therefore you see we have the

conjugated verb

comst comst in the second position

of the sentence easy right

okay next sentence

this is the first interesting item of

pronunciation

s c h here s c

h sounds like an in german like sh

meaning he studies german every day

or word by word he studies every day

german that's how we say but the

important thing here is

merely only where to put the verb you

see

this is a statement it has a full stop

at the end it just

gives information about who is doing

what

when and you see the verb learn

learnen is in the second position of the

sentence

directly after the subject that makes it

sentence type a

okay when we now want to ask that person

directly

do you study german we will say leon stu

deutsch

do you study german okay in this case we

have a question

of course and it is a yes no question

you can answer yes i study german no i

don't study german

and since this is a yes no question that

makes it sentence type

b because we find the verb

in the first position of the sentence

and now lastly if his answer is no we

will tell him oh well you should

go study german learn deutsch

learn the deutsch and now we are giving

a command

to someone or maybe a recommendation if

we were to formulate it a little bit

more politely

but since this is a command and it has

an exclamation mark

at the end it corresponds to sentence

type

b as well because we are starting the

command with the verb

in the first position of the sentence

and that is actually all you need to

know

for the beginning

so i would like to go up one more time

because those tables here

actually contain the relevant points of

this lesson

ask yourself what kind of sentence

you're trying to construct

and depending on that statement w

questions

or for type b yes no questions and

commands

you will need to put the verb in

different positions in the sentence

and i don't want you to worry about

all of these words here the precise

vocabulary and

what exactly is an object and what is an

addition

all of this comes later the key message

the takeaway message

is remember where to put the verb

because in the next lesson

i will show you how to conjugate verbs

in

regular present tense and i will also

show you the irregular verbs for to be

and to have and once we have those we

will be able to construct so many

sentences

already to get you talking and thinking

in german

as early as possible so thank you very

much for joining

for this lesson i would love to see you

in the next one as well please be so

kind to subscribe and if you enjoyed the

lesson please give me a thumbs up

i appreciate very much it helps

enormously and i will see you next time

thank you