Reference · module 2
Numbers and things
Everything this module explains, on one page.
Null bis zwölf
Count to twelve, and read a price or a platform number.
- The first three are almost free: eins, zwei, drei. Then vier, fünf, sechs, sieben, acht, neun, zehn. Say them out loud once and most of them stay.
- Eleven and twelve break the pattern before it starts: elf and zwölf, not einszehn and zweizehn. Every language does this, and German gets it out of the way early.
- On the phone and in a shop, zwei is often said as zwo. Same number, said differently so it cannot be heard as drei.
The mistake you are about to make
Ich habe eins Kind.
Ich habe ein Kind.
English counts "one" and says "one child" with the same word, so eins will follow the noun out of your mouth. Counting is eins; in front of a noun it is ein.
Dreizehn bis hundert
Say any number under a hundred, and say how old you are.
- From thirteen the pattern is simple: the digit plus zehn. Dreizehn, vierzehn, fünfzehn, sechzehn, siebzehn. Sechzehn and siebzehn drop a letter to stay sayable.
- The tens end in -zig: zwanzig, dreißig, vierzig, fünfzig, sechzig, siebzig, achtzig, neunzig. Dreißig is the odd one, with ß instead of z.
- Then German says the number backwards. 21 is einundzwanzig — one and twenty. 47 is siebenundvierzig. It feels wrong for a week and then it does not.
The mistake you are about to make
zwanzigeins
einundzwanzig
English counts twenty-one in the order it is written, so you will reach for zwanzigeins. German says the units first and glues them on with und: ein-und-zwanzig. Written 21, said backwards.
Der, die, das
Understand why every German noun comes with a small word attached.
- Every German noun has a gender, and it is not the gender you would guess. Der Mann, die Frau, das Kind — and das Mädchen, the girl, is neuter.
- So the article is not something to work out. It is part of the word, and the only way that works is to learn them together: not Tisch but der Tisch.
- One piece of good news. In the plural every noun takes die, whatever it was in the singular: der Tisch becomes die Tische, das Kind becomes die Kinder.
The mistake you are about to make
Das Mädchen ist jung. Sie ist zehn.
Das Mädchen ist jung. Es ist zehn.
A girl is she in English, so das looks like a typo and you will still say sie. Mädchen is neuter, and the pronoun follows the word rather than the person: es.
Was ist das?
Name the things around you and ask what something is.
- Was ist das? What is that? It is the most useful question a beginner has, because the answer is always a new word with its article attached.
- A few to start with: der Tisch, der Stuhl, die Tür, das Fenster, das Wasser, der Kaffee. Two masculine, one feminine, two neuter, and no way to have guessed.
- To say something is not what was guessed, German uses kein. Das ist kein Kaffee, das ist Tee. Kein negates a noun, where nicht negates everything else.
The mistake you are about to make
Das ist nicht Kaffee.
Das ist kein Kaffee.
English has one "not" for everything, so "that is not coffee" comes out as nicht Kaffee. German keeps a separate word for denying a noun, and that word is kein.