Aus die or aus der? Leaving a station is hard

These nine prepositions mess up what you’ve learned about the dative (III)

If a sentence were an opera, some nouns are the protagonists, the Heldentenöre, acting in unison with the verb while other nouns are receiving the action, playing the antagonists. They might be lovers or villains, but shine nevertheless. The dative case though has been assuming an unassuming role. It appears when the noun is merely a location of actions (Wir singen. Where? Auf der Bühne.) or when the noun is indirectly involved in the interaction of the others. (Wir schenken eine Blume. Whom? Dem Bariton.) However, what finally seems to us as something that makes sense, is messed up by a bunch of prepositions. They are the unruly extras on the stage, little words that disturb the logic of forming sentences we have aquired so diligently. Good news: Of the dozens of prepositions these are only nine.

aus.
It tells us about a movement (instead of a location), but insists that you have to use the dative: Wir gehen aus der U-Bahn-Station. (Die Station is feminine like all words ending with -ion by the way.)

zu, nach.
They describe a movement, too: Ich gehe zu dem Opernhaus (das Opernhaus, neuter), and Ich fliege nach Milano. We use zu for a specific destination like an opera house or a restaurant, and nach for an abstract location like a city or a country; nach also tells us about events following other events: Nach dem Sommer proben wir Don Giovanni. (Der Sommer is masculine like all months and seasons by the way.)

mit, bei.
Wir singen mit den Kindern. (plural die Kinder) Du wohnst mit Maria Callas. This means you share an apartment with her while Du wohnst bei Maria Callas means you moved into her house to live with her. Ich warte bei dem Würstchenstand. (I wait somehow near the sausage stand.)

von.
Ich habe die Blume von einem Verehrer (admirer).

seit.
This preposition marks the beginning of an activity that is still continuing. Seit dem Winter lebe ich in Berlin. Seit der Aufführung (performance) fühle ich mich glücklich.

ab.
This preposition marks a time in the future when an activity begins. Ab dem 9. November sind die Tickets für das Opernhaus billiger.

gegenüber.
Wir treffen uns gegenüber der Mozart-Statue.

Read next week: VIPs – very important verbs that need attention and the dative.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wherever You Go, the Dative is Waiting for You

A street name tells you more about grammar than you want to know (II)

This Berlin avenue connects the Brandenburger Tor with the Alexanderplatz, a great street to stroll and – at least in the past – to show off your Sunday street style, but never without the dative which jumps at you from every street sign along your way. It involves the tree with its heart-shaped leaves that line this avenue and gives it its name: die Linde, the linden tree. Plural: die Linden. So, when the sun is up where do we seek cover from the heat? Unter … den! Linden. This little step from the blistering sun to the refreshing shade turns the plural die Lindeninto den Linden. While Unter die Linden tells us where we are going, Unter den Linden tells us where we are.

Wohin gehen wir? Unter die Linden. (We are not there yet.)

Wo sind wir jetzt? Unter den Linden. (Now, we are there.)

Like a character in an opera, every noun plays a certain role in a sentence. Whatever we do, either stehen, liegen, sein (to be), spazieren (to stroll), schlafen, tanzen, essen, trinken or singen, the nouns representing the location will change their article and accordingly their pronouns.

der > dem
die > der
das > dem
die (plural) > den

Of course, we need to know the gender of the nouns and the prepositions, too. We have auf  (on/horizontal), an (on/vertical), in, vor (in front of), hinter (behind), über (above), unter( under), zwischen (between).

This picture shows the Staatsoper in Berlin on Unter den Linden. Fill in the blanks below.

1. die Statuen (pl), das Dach
Wo stehen die Statuen?
Auf ______ Dach.

2. das weiße Auto, das blaue Auto.
Wo ist das weiße Auto?
Vor ______ blauen Auto

3. das weiße Auto, das blaue Auto, die Oper
Wo ist das blaue Auto?
Zwischen ______ weißen Auto und ______ Oper.

4. das Banner, die Säulen (pl)
Wo hängt das Banner?
Zwischen ______ Säulen.

Read next week part III of the dative saga: With what are you going to the opera?

 

 

 

Dedicate Yourself dem Dativ

Guess the verb – whatever happens it happen to dem deutschen Volke – Dativ (I)

The Reichstag, home of the German parliament, was built 125 years ago. Even before it was finished, a debate raged through the political circles of Berlin what inscription it should carry. The Kaiser ruled, appointed and fired chancellors and ministers, decreed laws or declared wars or – not very often – peace. The parliament itself was elected according to a three-class-system of voting, leaving the representatives of the lower classes much less seats than the representatives of the aristocracy. It should inspire without hurting the monarch’s feelings. The idea was to put up a short inscription with not more than three or four words which would not be a problem. One case in the German language, the dative, helps us to keep our statements consice.

In part I of the series about the dative we look at nouns that have turned into an indirect object.

A normal sentence consists of a thing, an animal or a person that is doing something and a verb, the action word:

Wir singen. Wir essen. Wir schlafen. (That’s all opera singers need to do.)

If we say, “Wir besuchen” we realize that this is not enough. We have to add an object, a thing, an animal or a person that is receiving the action.

Wir besuchen das Parlament.

To involve a third party in our actions, we might schenken, geben or nehmen, kaufen, schreiben etc.

Wir schenken eine Blume.

We like the Sopranistin and want to give the flower to her. Now, the dative pops up, ready to complete the sentence. Wir schenken der Sopranistin eine Blume. The Sopranistin is an indirect object, as well as der Bariton for whom we have a Blume as well:

Wir schenken dem Bariton eine Blume.

In dative der turns into dem, die into der, the plural die into den– Wir präsentieren den Zuschauern eine Oper.

The article das turns into dem: das Volk(the people) becomes dem Volk or in the old way of declining nouns: dem Volke.

In 1916, it was decided to put up the phrase, “Dem deutschen Volke”. It is not a sentence but it is sufficient to understand its meaning. The Volk in dative cannot be active. As a matter of fact, it must be an indirect object receiving the Reichstag. The Reichstag is ______ to the people. We assume geben or – most likely – widmen (to dedicate). We still do not know who has gegebenorgewidmet: the Kaiser who hated the parliament? The people itself? Some heavenly power?

Refering to the oppression by the monarchy, some suggested the inscription:

Dem deutschen Volk ist der Zutritt verboten. (Access is forbidden to the German people.)

Some newspapers suffering the Kaiser’s censorship, quipped “Der deutschen Presse” (to the German press). Note: Presseis feminine, die Presse.

In 2000, the parliament invited the artist Hans Haacke to decorate the floor of the Reichstag’s court. With the inscription “Der Bevölkerung” he suggested to dedicate the parliament and therefore the democratic system to anyone who lives in Germany, no matter what passport they are carrying. It provoked a debate about who should have the right to vote.

The noun Bevölkerungends with –ung making it feminine. Die Bevölkerung. Dative: Der Bevölkerung.

Read next week: gefallen, gehören, zusehen, zuhören – important verbs that work only with dative.

 

 

 

If you ask ‘warum’, ‘darum’ will be the answer

Learn German as you learned your mother tongue when you were a toddler

 

Every learner of German has her or his way of studying. Some like to speak first before sorting out mistakes because to be understood is most important to them. Others, many of them opera singers, strive for perfection, study verb conjugations, recite grammar rules, or memorize the table of articles and the four cases in the German language as we find it in this graffiti on the back of a church in the Schiller-Kiez neighborhood of Berlin-Neukölln. I am waiting for the morning when the neighbors wake up to a question sprayed across the table by a desperate foreigner: “Warum?”

The question of why there are certain grammar rules comes up often in my classes. All these different articles, unnecessary noun declinations and the ridiculous order of words in a sentence “make no sense”, my students claim before repeating the question: “Warum?” It is one of the few questions I do not answer. The reason is simple: I can’t.

Every language solves its problems of accuracy differently – how to determine the receiving end of an action (accusative!), how to determine the location of an activity (dative!), or what is in the relationship of two nouns possessing and what is possessed (genitive!). Some Slavic languages for example do not need articles because the issues mentioned above are solved in the endings or the spelling of the nouns. English and Spanish are context-driven languages that lead the listener or reader to a precise understanding by what has been said before, or add prepositions to make things clear. So, the answer to dlaczego,why, por quéor warumwill be darum,that’s why, por eso, or dlatego. That is to say, the question warumdoes not really express the need to find a logic behind words and the structure that connects them but rather the frustration we feel when we cannot discover any reference to our mother tongue.

I dare to say that we do not need any reference than that what find in the foreign language itself. Even more: Our mother tongue is in the way of grasping the meaning of a foreign word or phrase, or a structural rule. The only help our mother language can give is to remind us how we required it. When we were toddlers we were the perfect students. We heard the language of our parents as sounds we tried to imitate. We observed their actions and connected them with the words they spoke. We experimented, spoke and watched the reaction of our enviroment to see if we were correct or not. Or we acted, hopped on the table, fell back during a family stroll, just to see what will be said.

How we learned as children is the method I suggest we should follow as closely as possible.

Here are my tips:

– Try to understand the language like a piece of music. In music, you read the score, hear the melody, and sing and hardly ask warumbecause you know the composer wrote it that way. As a singer ask native speakers for help, and learn to pronounce the words or the phrases you do not understand and gain access to its meaning.
– If you do not understand words, do not touch your dictionary app in a rush. Find a Wörterbuch first that explains the words in German, even if the explanation contain other words that you do not understand.
– If you need a dictionary get a visual dictionary. Avoid to remember the word in your mother language. Instead try to connect the word with its image in your mind. If a visual dictionary is not available, Type the word into a search engine and click on images.
– Walk through the streets with open eyes and ears. Read ads and try to understand the connecting between the images and the words, although some ads play with words making it difficult to discover the hidden meaning. Read newspaper headlines or get yourself a tabloid. By looking at pictures and words try to understand what the article is about. You do not have to understand the entire article.
– Go to store and ask a sales person to show you certain products or ask people on the street for direction to a place you know how to get to just to hear how it is explained.
– Prepare questions and interview your German friends. Ask them if you can record their answers. At home listen to the recording and transcribe every word they said. Read it out loud.

If you have other tips how to improve your language learning drop me a line. I would be happy to publish them here.