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Taking German Language Lessons? Watch Out for these Common Mistakes

If you are taking or about to take German language lessons, it is good to look out for some common mistakes that most beginners make in the learning process. O course, there is nothing wrong with making mistakes, the important thing is to learn from the mistakes and make a step forward and closer to proficiency. One of the errors many beginners make is the assumption that the German adverb ‘also’ means ‘also’. ‘Also’ in German means ‘therefore’. Thus, the sentence “Es regnet. Also bleiben wir zu Hause’ means “It’s raining. Therefore we’re staying home.” The sentence ‘Monika says she is sick, so she is not coming today” will read like this in German; “Monika sagt, sie ist krank, sie kommt heute also nicht”.

The English terms ‘too’ and ‘also’ use the German ‘auch’. So in the sentence “it’s raining and it’s windy, too”, the German version would read ‘Es regnet und es ist auch windig”. Notice where ‘auch’ has been positioned. Another common mistake is the confusion of the two words ‘dann’ and ‘denn’. In English, ‘dann’ is the adverb ‘then’ while the conjunction ‘denn’ means ‘for’ in English. Understanding that the conjunction ‘denn’ is used to connect two sentences together will make it easier to know exactly where to use in a sentence. To give an example, the sentence “He’s not working today because it’s Sunday” would read “Er arbeitet heute nicht, denn es ist Sonntag”. The conjunction ‘denn’ would thus be used for ‘because’ or ‘for’ words in the English language. The adverb ‘dann’ or ‘then’ in English can be used in a sentence in the following format, “Ich schreibe diesen Brief, dann gehe ich zur Post” which in English reads, “I’m writing this letter, then I’m going to the post office.”

As you take your German language lessons, you will come to discover that there are two different words for ‘friend’ in the German language. These are ‘Freund’ in masculine and ‘Freundin’ in feminine. The plural ‘Freundinnen’ is used to refer to more than one female friend while the plural ‘Freunde’ refers to more than one male or female friends together. Remember though that Germs are very choosy about who are their friends and therefore use these words when referring to close friends, otherwise stick to the word acquaintance or ‘Bekannte’. Also, of importance is the fact that the words ‘Freund’ and ‘Freundin’ signify a boyfriend or a girlfriend. You will therefore need to be careful how you use these words. I hope these above pointers will help you out in your German language lessons as you continue to ‘lerne Deutch.’

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