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"ignore the cases." - This is a very good tip.

Well, as a German native - let me tell you (or basically everyone who is trying to learn it) that we dont mind when you make mistakes in the case system. But putting in the effort to memorize them has 2 advantages: 1.) When you choose a case, German natives instinctively expect sentence contructions or specific words to come. Example: --- Frau Meier brachte ihre Tochter.... (Mrs. Meier took her daughter to....?) --- German native: Where to? to school? to a festival? But you intended to say something else, which would be e.g.: --- Frau Meier brachte ihrer Tochter (Mrs. Meier brought her daughter a...?) --- German native: What? a toy? a horse? And if you then say something else, we have to rethink, which is kind of annoying. 2.) It sounds really wrong to our ears if you come up with the wrong case. "Ich brachte ihrem Tochter in das Kindergarten von die Stadt" is like I would say in English: "I bringed the daughter to the kindergarden from the city." Comparison is impossible , it just sounds terrible. That beeing said, dont give up on the cases, give them a chance. As Mr. Kaufmann said, it is not as hard as in Russian... :)

I studied German for two tears with an Austrian teacher and I got crazy about those declensions and it frustrated me so bad that I stopped studying it. Now I flat out ignore the cases and I'm back to German. Eventually they will fall into place.

Aber für mich war das nicht möglich die Deklinationen am Anfang zu lernen.

"...keep reading and listening!"

I'd suggest to anyone learning German to search in the language on KZfaq, there's really a lot of stuff you can watch. Reviews about products, news, vlogs, etc, this really helped me a lot to reach an intermediate/advanced level by just having fun. About the relative clauses and the verbs going to the end of the sentence, I agree this can get very confusing. Even now that I am able to speak German quite well I still find these long clauses very distracting during the conversation, perhaps because of a short-term memory problem I sort of lose the train of thought if the person takes too long to get back to the main clause.

German nouns: 4 cases, 3 genders (singular) and plural. That amounts to a 4x4 table of endings for nouns. My approach to this was to learn the table. So, in effect, I was applying an 4x4 table as I spoke German. I neither recommend nor advise against this approach. It worked for me. But I admit I found it hard to believe that I'd ever get to the point where, like a native speaker, I could automatically make the right choices without thinking about it. Then one day, in Germany not coincidentally, I realized I was speaking German correctly without any thought about that table. It had actually become automatic! As for word order, the rules are simple and clear, and hence never posed any problem. Using English word order in a German sentence would be as weird and difficult to do as imposing German word order on an English sentence. I kind of like having to wait until the end of a sentence to say or hear the verb. It's like a mini-cliffhanger. It forces you to pay attention. :-) I find Romance languages with their abundance of vowels very melodic, but I was delighted by German's abundance of consonants. *_Vive la différence!_* Or as the Germans say, *_Lang lebe der Unterschied!_* Also, German's propensity for concatenation, resulting in very long words is fun! The fire insurance company = Die Feuerversicherungsgesellschaft. Who could resist that? After all, "fire insurance company" is one concept, so why not one word? German also has its ways of saying things more succinctly: The day after tomorrow = Übermorgen. Finally, capitalizing the nouns actually makes reading easier.

I mentioned the fact that I basically stayed away from trying to master the declensions. I speak better when I don't try to speak correctly. Informal and formal is not a difficult thing to grasp.

I *love* that you put timelines in the descriptions. Extremely convenient. Very appreciated!

Sorry I lost track of that question. Unfortunately KZfaq is not very efficient in keeping track of comments. After what I listen to, it depends on the language it depends on how advanced I am, etc. I usually start with what we have in our library at LingQ since it always includes audio and text and is graded for difficulty. I then search for radio stations or podcasts, preferably those that have audio and text. If you want detail information per language, please let me know.

I couldn't disagree more on Germans being good English speakers. I live in Germany and I find it impressive how there are so many people that do not speak English (or any other language, most of the time). That is my motivation to learn German.

Trying to remember the declensions when speaking really used to slow me down. I noticed a huge improvement in my speaking skills after just focusing on getting my message across as fluently as possible. So, focus on communicative competence before diving into linguistic (grammar) competence.

I found that learning German grammar has made my English grammar better. It forced me to pay attention in English on how I structure my sentences. I'm now trying to pick up Icelandic and I find a lot of common ground with German, although not say as close as Swedish. Exit: Icelandic-útgang German-Ausgang

Learning German made me appreciate English much more. Thank God for this simple and effective lingua franca we have nowadays.

It's silly people don't like German because Italian, French, and Spanish are "languages of love." A language is loving because the person speaking it is loving. You can't go into a language thinking it will be difficult. I've studied Spanish, Japanese, German, and American sign language. Japanese is the easiest for me to pronounce, I get the most real world practice with Spanish, German words are the most memorable for some reason, and signs can be done alongside vocabulary for any other language. They all have prose and cons. I really want to learn German so I can listen to all my favorite German language operas :) .

Sorry for the typos, that dictation software makes me lazy!

You can find them in our library at LingQ. In some case our members have transcribed them.

You are 100% right. I was learning english without study grammar. Maybe my english is not very good but i have understood all that you said, and i can speak too. Now is the moment of learn more about grammar, but yes, in the begining is better read, listen and try to speak and not pay attention to these foggy things.

I come a bit late, but I have to thank you. You have increased my motivation and you talk with such a clarity.

Glad to hear it.

This was a really fun video to watch, and I could relate to everything you said!

i am german why i look the video ?? :DD

Audio is perfect, Thank you :)

You have my same approach to language learning. I'll only care about perfecting my understanding of cases and stuff once I get to at least an intermediate level. My main problem at the moment is acquiring enough vocabulary and getting used to the structure of the language.

Thanks! Your tips are very useful! especially the one on verbs!

My first language is English and I learned dutch fluently(c1 approaching c2) so german word orde should be no problem so it should be pretty easy!

There is no problem understanding what the Dative is, no need for mnemonics. The problem is remembering the endings.

i actually learned a lot of German by listening to a German metal band i really love called Rammstein.

Really amazing instructions sir It’s inspirational to us

Mr. Kaufmann, Thanks for your videos! deeply appreciated

On the subject of capitalising nouns, I find that with certain words it's really helpful. For example, morgen and Morgen. With one meaning tomorrow and one meaning morning. You can tell from the context which is which but I still found it helpful to be blatantly told by whether the m was capitalised or not.

That is why I prefer to ignore the whole thing. I don't worry about gender and cases and do better. I naturally start to get it right more and more of the time.

Thank you so much Sir for your valuable time and guidance. As a German intermediate language learner, I must say initially it was bit difficult to get a sense of grammar especially Akkusativ & Dativ cases, trenbarren verbs, praposition & prefixes etc. Nevertheless, it was very exciting to explore the nuances of the language with the help of various videos by so many experts and apps. I allocate my time appropriately for different objectives such as vocabulary, grammar, concept & conversations around certain themes. This way, I am able to maintain my motivation for learning further.

Noted and agreed.

I 100% agree with you. Motivation is key for learning German. When watching KZfaq I start in German but I then swap to French which is more appealing to me.

Learning Latin helps you with cases as well. As a German i always used the cases correct unconsciously, but for Latin i studied the Latin cases and since these two systems are really similar it helped me understand the German cases much better.

I am going to apply for a foreign exchange for my senior year in high school. My country of choice is Germany. I am applying to CBYX (Congress-Bunderstag Youth Exchange) and I am really excited. I came across this channel a while back, and I just want to say that you've helped me ALOT. Thanks, and keep up the good work!

Thanks for the video. Very helpful.

Hello again Steve, vielen Dank, dass du diese interessante Video gedreht hast! Ich glaube, dass es besser ist, wenn man die Deklinationen am Anfang des Lernens lernt, danach kann man ein bisschen vergessen, um fließender zu sein. Meine Meinung nach, sind die Deklinationen bzw. die Fälle aber nämlich sehr wichtig, um es zu merken, wie es genau mit anderen Sprachen funktioniert. Man muss in diesem Fall bewusst sein, es lohnt sich am Ende und es ist außerdem nicht zu schwierig.

A good way I found to get better at the cases was through writing, simply by checking the cases in the e-mails I had to write, and occasionally doing other writing exercises. You just get more used to using the right forms, and become more aware of what mistakes you tend to do, without it being the daunting (and way less effective) task of learning the whole table at once!

I honestly believe that we shouldn't look up how 'difficult' a language is. I think you hit the nail on the head about motivation. If you want to learn German... or any other language for that matter... you'll learn it. At this moment in time I have no interest to learn Mandarin for example, however have a huge interest in Polish. And I will guarantee that if I started studying both, my Polish will be at a much higher level after 6 months because of that.

Might I offer an opinion on the capitalization of nouns? Nouns are, in general, the focus and main building blocks of sentences. Language is a way to convey how we perceive the things in the world around us and their interactions with each other. By capitalizing these "things" it draws more focus to them and may make them seem more vivid or prevalent. Also, in German sometimes nouns are combined with adjectives and other words to create very lengthy words. The fact that these words are usually capitalized makes them a bit easier to look at in my opinion and in turn a bit easier to read. Again, these are all opinions.

From someone who is learning German at the moment: you are right in everything you say!

Ha, and concerning the word order: In "A Scandal in Bohemia" Sherlock Holmes famously said: "Only a German is so uncourteous to his verbs."

Thanks for the help!😄

The sound was great. For a video like you do here you really do have to have good sound. Many computer audio systems are horrible. Its a bit of a widespread technical issue but this good.

Hey Steve. You haven't referred to this in your video (unless I passed it up) but here you go: how long did you take learning German to a level good enough to communicate and also being able to work with it?. I am about to start studying German as a C Language (being A Spanish and B English) so I'd like to be aware on the time it will take me to pass from the very basics to an Advanced degree in German. Japanese is another language I am so eager to get my hands into, I wouldn't want to do the wrong decision on which out of the two take on first. Thank you very much!.

Personally, I find it fascinating, enriching and helpful to study/learn languages in groups, e.g., the Semitic languages or the Germanic languages, etc. I'm presently learning Swedish, and studying OE has helped me understand things like definite/indefinite adjective inflexion in Swedish, e.g., ett rött hus vs röda huset, and to remember Germanic vocabulary that's obsolete in modern English but retained in Swedish and OE: att fara, gammal, dom, barn, etc.

Thank you Steve

Danke, Lehrer Steve! Ich liebe die Deutschsprach!

I have seen Katjas video so many times that I completely forgot the fact that you are a native English speaker. you sound so straaaaaaange!!! love youuuuu you are the best of the best! :D

I work as customer service in a Cultural Centre in Barcelona and I receive thousands of Germans each year and I can say that they are happy when you try your Gernan with them (so are Swiss and Austrians). Shoukd you dream of living and working in Germany German is imprescindible.

In Germany the newspapers sometimes use very odd wording in order to avoid using the same word twice. So instead of saying "the beatles" over and over again, they might substitute their name by several descriptions of them, such as the amount of band members, their haircut, the albums they released or whatever. That's not really a natural use of the language. It depends on the newspaper and the quality of the journalist and I may be exaggerating a little bit, but sometimes it gets kind of absurd because they may give you totally irrelevant information about the person in order to avoid the repetion of his name. It's a bit like writing an article about Voldemort. Also those very long sentences are in my opinion a very bad writing style. People try to pack all the content they want to tell you into one sentence but it can become almost incomprehensible. As a native German speaker some English scientific papers are easier for me to understand than German ones. That's simply because the sentences are often shorter. If a sentence contains 50 words, 8 of them being technical terms that I'm hardly familiar with, then understanding it is difficult. My school books in physics and maths were written like that and for me they were totally incromprehensible. In general newspapers are probably an easily accessible source that has little limits for use - but one should be aware that it's not always a natural usage of words. I can recommend www.tagesschau.de by the way. I use it on a regular basis and there are several articles that got audio plus transcript.

I just wanted to mention that there is formal and informal because for people who don't have experience with languages where it exists, it's another thing that makes it more difficult; in addition to cases and genders. I got what you said about the cases but for people who want to go for C2, it's important… although even a lot of German natives use the wrong cases all the time (they're not C2, basically). That's why the book you bought exists and is titled "Der Dativ ist dem Genitiv sein Tod".

What do you think about Hello Talk and Hello Pal, and other apps to chat with foreign speakers? Vielen Danke für dieses Video

Certainly, motivation is the biggest factor there. That how I learned Ancient Greek and be able to read Homer in the original on my own. I am a Thai (ethnically Sino-Thai) and speak Thai as a mother language. I used to learn Chinese when I was an undergrad but then lost the motivation (though not the interest) because I realized I had to master English first if I want to pursue a graduate degree in an English speaking country. People need motivation to study languages. But I do think that our English-speaking world places a lot of constraints on people who don't speak English as the first language. It pressures them to spend much time and perseverance on English first. And the contemporary standard of English comprehension/command is pretty high. You are expected to master it - not just picking-it-up-and-let-see-how-it-goes things like you do with other languages. After that they may enter a working life and have less time or could no longer invest in acquiring new languages.

I like the fact that I can hear the sounds of German. And when I hear it, I feel that I'm connected or, home. I find that it's easy to say the words as compared to French, Chinese or Esperanto.

German sounds pretty cool. I like it. And it goes really easy if you get the grip of English. The trouble for beginners may be capital letters in nouns, which a bit annoys, and long words made of combinations of short words, but one may get used to them later, and counting with reversed system of units and tens, which is hard to understand by ear.

When you have a sentence with capitalised nouns, you get the content out of the sentence in between less than a second even without reading it. Thats the big thing an its great! ;)

Motivated to know German to read the philosophers! Edit: And the poetry!

I do love the inflection of sentences in Russian For someone who has learned Spanish,Portuguese and English, learning that inflection is awesome!

What are Das Der Die Den Dem THE.

Hallo Steve, bitte gestatte mir, dass ich in Deutsch antworte. Denn dein Deutsch ist sehr gut und so gut wie akzentfrei. Doch zunächst vielen Dank für deine Ausführungen. Ich glaube, was du über Motivation erklärt hast, ist sehr wichtig. Auch ich habe einiges von dir gelernt. Nicht, wie ich meine eigene Sprache verwenden muss, sondern einiges über die Strukturen im Deutschen, die für mich als "native speaker" selbstverständlich sind. Als Deutsch-Lehrer für Flüchtlingskinder ist es immer wieder wichtig, über meine eigene Sprache zu reflektieren. Vieles, worüber du gesprochen hast, hat mich an meinen eigenen Deutsch-Unterricht mit Flüchtlingskindern erinnert. Vielen Dank für deinen Beitrag. Grüße aus Deutschland Wolfgang

Hey Steve, might I say that you confirmed my theory about language acquisition. I was telling my friends that I believe our minds are not like tabula rasa as far as language acq is concerned. I believe its like a hidden circuit..you dig more and more (like reading words/getting familiar w/o worrying too much about the rules and all and when that is suddenly done for a long enough period of time, voila the floodgates open and the circuit lights up.....suddenly everything nbecomes easier and the verbs come alive also......

Dear Steve, in one of your previous videos (about learning Japanese) you've touched very interesting aspect about OUTPUT: the initial "fluency" in speaking foreign language (that could be achieved rather rapidly) and gradual improvement of active speaking (that could take years). Can you talk about this in details next time? Thanks.

You are my role-model! MANY THANKS! Very inspiring, truly motivating! BRAVO!!!

Danke, diese zwei Deustsche Videos waren sehr nützlich.

Steve, i recommend you to try Reinhard Mey for advanced German music. On a more silly level you could also check EAV (Erste Allgemeine Verunsicherung) from Austria.

"Der Dativ ist dem Genitiv sein Tod" is a book about how the genetive case is being replaced by the dativ case in modern times and if the trend goes on the genetive may vanish completly. Today, while in theory 4 cases exist, only 3 are really used in daily life, coming closer to english there

I don't worry about gender or cases.

Best advice ever in order to learn German: LISTEN RAMMSTEIN !

Thank you!

i don't find it incredibly difficult to put the verbs at the end, but it is more difficult because basically you are describing the sentense for ages, then once you get to the end you find the ver, which you then need to apply all the previous context to. If that makes sense. It feels like they describe things forever, then when you finally get to the verb you can't remember what the previous adjectives and nouns were lol.

the verb dosn't always come at the end,but often. in german you can vary sentences widley 'der hund,den meine oma einst hatte,hatte schwarze ohren' and 'meine oma hatte einst einen hund der schwarze ohren hatte' are both right and I'm pretty shure that I could find at least two other posibilities of using these words to make an sentence with the same meaning. also Faun is a german band witch makes nice music.

Steve, how many keyboard input languages you have? Does switching between them annoy you sometimes? :D

hmm, from my previous understanding, sentence structure goes subject-verb-object for statements and verb-subject-object for questions. i guess that's not always the case then

My plan is to start learning German now because of college. I read that Rosetta isn't all that and would like to know what do you recommend to start studying?

What do you recommend to start learning German websites apps etc. how long would it take to speak fluent German

Thanks there you said it. Makes my heart lighter after listening to a experienced person 🤤

great one

Thank's a lot prof.Steve for posting video about German am trying to learn German about 2 years and my level is so-so...what Time I need to be fluent in German?

Wow thanks for these tips ive been studying german for about 3 months now and I will take your advice I also felt german music helps with learning the language, Rammstein is a great band and if a word I don't know I look it up and when I hear the song again I remember what it means great vid Danke

Excuse me Steve, I asked you this on another video but I'm not sure if you received it. My question is, what do you listen to in your 'dead/off time' / where do you get this material? Thanks!

Yes I find it annoying switching to different keyboards. That is why the dictation software on my Mac is so convenient.

Maybe that guy on the forums was talking about 'krautrock'. A form of german progressive/experimental rock music from the 60's and 70's. Very good stuff. There are some good german indie rock bands today like Tomte, Kettcar and the now defunct Wir sind helden. One of my favorite german singers is Annett Louisan, she makes a very interesting mix of french chanson with traditional german music. I highly recomend her stuff.

Hey it's me again. I just came across a German text that is really worth reading. I mean really. It's from the novel "Momo" written by Michael Ende. Here it is: "Was die kleine Momo konnte wie kein anderer, das war das Zuhören. Das ist doch nichts Besonderes, wird nun vielleicht mancher Leser sagen, zuhören kann doch jeder. Aber das ist ein Irrtum. Wirklich zuhören können nur recht wenige Menschen. Und so wie Momo sich aufs Zuhören verstand, war es ganz und gar einmalig. Momo konnte so zuhören, dass dummen Leuten plötzlich sehr gescheite Gedanken kamen. Nicht etwa, weil sie etwas sagte oder fragte, was den anderen auf solche Gedanken brachte - nein, sie saß nur da und hörte einfach zu, mit aller Aufmerksamkeit und aller Anteilnahme. Dabei schaute sie den anderen mit ihren großen, dunklen Augen an, und der Betreffende fühlte, wie in ihm plötzlich Gedanken auftauchten, von denen er nie geahnt hatte, dass sie in ihm steckten. Sie konnte so zuhören, dass ratlose, unentschlossene Leute auf einmal ganz genau wussten, was sie wollten. Oder dass Schüchterne sich plötzlich frei und mutig fühlten. Oder dass Unglückliche und Bedrückte zuversichtlich und froh wurden. Und wenn jemand meinte, sein Leben sei ganz verfehlt und bedeutungslos und er selbst nur irgendeiner unter Millionen, einer, auf denen es überhaupt nicht ankommt, und er ebenso schnell ersetzt werden kann wie ein kaputter Topf - und er ging hin und erzählte das alles der kleinen Momo, dann wurde ihm, noch während er redete, auf geheimnisvolle Weise klar, dass er sich gründlich irrte, dass es ihn, genauso wie er war, unter allen Menschen nur ein einziges Mal gab und dass er deshalb auf seine besondere Weise für die Welt wichtig war. So konnte Momo zuhören." What do you think about it, Steve?

Sir, I have a question about learning a second language, I can understand English at C1 level and read but am not that good at speaking, I realize that it becomes because I do not have adequate conditions in order to force myself to speak. Let's get to the question I was thinking about if I learn German I will force myself to think English and that will help me to think more English and learn a second language, is that thought correct what would u recommend to me? Also I have relatives who can speak German it drives me to learn in order to understand them :)

We capitalize nouns because some words can be a noun and / or a verb / adjective and it helps a person to understand the meaning of the sentence. That being said, I don't think it's essential and we could probably drop it.

Hello Steve. Could you mention radio stations or podcasts in german where there is audio and text?

Hi Steve, the German language as we know it now was "melted" from various dialects by Martin Luther when he did the first "German" translation of the bible. So, it started as a written, not a spoken language. This explains a few of the differences we see now between English and German. Still today in the parliament you will quickly recognize if a politician uses a written manuscript. The complicated sentence structures are hard to comprehend. However, if you buy a German tabloid, you will often find sentences with only 5 or 6 words. So, your strategy to avoid problems with sentence structures should be to use shorter sentences. Example, Don't say: Der Unfall wurde in den frühen Morgenstunden, kurz nach Sonnenaufgang und für den Fahrer unvorhersehbar durch ein Reh, das vom Wald auf eine Wiese wechseln wollte und mit erheblichen Folgen auch für nachfolgende Fahrzeuge, verursacht. WHAT? Try this: Kurz nach Sonnenaufgang verursachte ein Reh einen Unfall. Es war von einer Wiese über die Straße Richtung Wald gelaufen. Der Fahrer hatte es übersehen. Auch nachfolgende Autos wurden darin verwickelt. 3 sentences instead of 1, and even shorter! Many Germans who play hide and seek with the verb believe this is "good German". It is not. I totally agree with you that learning rules is not the preferred way to learn German.

Greetings from Slovakia :-)I just found your channel. I am motivated to learn German in 2 years time just because in Germany there are much better job offers. After watching your video I am encouraged to learn it without many difficulties ( i hope so). i' d like to know what motivated you in learning more difficult languages like Japanese for example :-). Have a nice day :-)

I do like to listen modern German music! It's awesome!

I have do disagree with you on your thoughts on the German cases. They are a crucial part of the language and - like in Russian - the wrong case or just not using cases period can change the meaning of a sentence or make its meaning entirely ambiguous. Plus, as another user mentioned, complete disregard of the cases makes your German sound painful to a native speaker. If you're just learning German for listening comprehension, I guess you can disregard them, but if you want to be able to speak and communicate in the language, then leaning the case system is really required. Also, if you can master the Russian case system as you have done, learning the German case system should be no problem as it's much simpler. Just my thoughts for what they're worth.

Interesting video Steve. The book you mentioned has nothing to do with learning cases; it is a humorous collection of articles about typical mistakes which Germans make in their language. A very funny read, I highly recommend it (as well as the column whence the articles were taken). Greetings from Hamburg MJ

Pretty interesting, and don't mind for those who ate complaining about throw long is the video, the one who's interested still enjoy it.

German Industrial. Some of the best.

Though a monolingual anglophone, I took Latin, which has 5 cases, so cases are not too bad for me.

hahaha I find it so funny when he says "I DON'T CARE". 😂😂

we capitalize nouns because it looks better in the sentense. it looks like a floating river with waves and so on. at least thats what my teacher in primary school was telling us :P