German is an inflected language, meaning that nouns and verbs change their form in accordance with their function in a sentence or the kind of action or actor being mentioned. Adjectives and articles are inflected to agree in gender and number with the nouns. Verbs are modified in accordance with the person and number of the subject and the time period to which the action refers. Many verbs have separable prefixes, which invoke special rules of word order. Subjunctive mood is used for matters of doubt, emotion and in special circumstances (like indirect quotations.) Special forms exist for imperative mood. Prepositions, adverbs, conjunctions and interjections are normally not inflected.

Nouns and Adjectives

Genders. The three genders of the Proto-European Language (PIE) survive in German: Masculine, Feminine, and Neuter. Gender is not the same as “sex.” Objects can be any of the three genders, and people, too. All diminutives are neuter, so that "Fräulein" (Miss), the diminutive of "Frau" (Mrs.) is a neuter noun, even though most persons appropriately called "Fräulein" assuredly are not anything but female. Genders typically must be memorized, as there is no proto-language, like Latin, to provide a compass. Nouns ending in “-e” are usually (but not always) feminine. Nouns ending in "-heit,” "-keit,” "-tät,” "-ung,” "-ik,” and "-schaft" can be relied upon to be feminine. Generally they form nouns that describe abstract things or quantities, and most (but not all) abstractions are in the feminine gender.

Nouns in German are always capitalized. Many nouns are concatenated, with the right-most noun being the one to determine gender, plural, etc. These are called "left-branching compounds," and, somewhat different from modern English are written in closed form, that is, without spaces. Though there is no limit to the number of branched words in a compound, it is unusual to have more than three. An example is “fountain pen” which in German is "Füllfederhalter" (where the "Feder" is a “feather” and the "Halter" is a “holder”).

There are four cases in German for nouns: Nominative (subject), Genitive (possessive), Dative (indirect object) and Accusative (direct object). By rule, objects of any given preposition will take either the accusative or the dative, and some might take either, depending mainly upon whether action is involved. A third category of preposition takes the genitive (for example, the proposition meaning “instead of”). Thus, the dative has absorbed the functions of both the dative and the ablative from Latin. In common speech, one hears the dative used instead of the genitive for possession, but it is still considered a non-standard (i.e., wrong) usage.

Nouns not only have a gender, but they have singular and plural forms. Unlike English, in which "s" or "-es" forms most plurals, a wide variety of pluralization techniques are employed in German. Most feminine nouns form their plurals in the same way, by adding an “n” at the end, as in "Dame" (lady) and "Damen" (ladies). There are 12 different methods of forming plurals, most of which apply for masculine and neuter nouns. Plural inflections are relatively few. The inflection does not change from the nominative when moving to another case in the plural, except for feminine dative.

In the definite article, the plural inflections are the same for all three genders in the definite article. Thus, the set of inflections is 16 (four cases times four “genders” – counting the plural as a fourth gender for this purpose). Of the 16 possibilities, a good many are the same. "Die,” for example, does quadruple duty for feminine and plural, and nominative and accusative. There are really one six discrete forms: "der,” "die,” "das,” "des,” "dem,” and "den."

The definite article precedes the noun and must agree with it in case, gender and number. It is "der, die, das" in the singular nominative masculine, feminine and neuter.

With all these possible variations, the student of German is always reminded to learn a noun with the definite article, and the plural, so as to know both gender and the (often irregular) plural formation. An example is "Der Mann, die Männer“ (man, men).

The indefinite article also precedes the noun and must agree in gender, case, and number. It is "ein, eine, ein" in the singular nominative, masculine, feminine and neuter.

Adjectives, including demonstrative and interrogative adjectives, also are inflected according to case, gender and number. While the endings are roughly the same as for nouns and articles, special inflection rules may apply when both an article and adjective appear with the noun. For example, “handsome man” would be "schöner Mann.” With the definite article, it would be "der schöne Mann,” and with the indefinite article it would be "ein schöner Mann.” Adjectives usually precede the noun modified. Participles are considered adjectives. If an adjective is used as a predicate adjective (as in the case of the verb “to be”), the adjective then does not agree with the noun, but remains uninflected. Adjectives also appear uninflected to modify verbs, as if they were adverbs.

Pronouns function like pronouns in English for the first and second persons (the speaker and the person spoken to). The third person pronouns not only refer to other nouns with agreement in gender, number and case, but they can introduce nominal phrases. The pronouns in German are provided in the following table:

Word Order for Nouns

In German, the verb portion of a sentence follows certain rules of word order, and the “subject” and “object” portions of the sentence follow their own rules of word order. A “nominal phrase” in German consists of a number of components, most of which are optional, but the order of the components is fixed. They are, in order: (1) article, (2) cardinal or ordinal number, (3) one or more adjectives, (4) the noun or pronoun, (5) the genitive attribute, (6) positional attributes, (7) relative clause, (8) reflexive pronoun. All elements are optional except that there must be a "core" element, which can be a number, an adjective, a noun or a pronoun.

•	The article is employed unless it is an "indefinite plural" or an "uncountable" noun (as in "I like tea," “I’ve got rhythm" or “Let’s eat potatoes.”).
•	Cardinal numbers come before adjectives, preceded by the first and second person personal pronouns, if applicable. Third person personal pronouns can not go before cardinal numbers. The indefinite article can be interpreted as “one” with a singular noun, though the special word "eins" (“one”) is used in the nominative. Any number above “one” requires the plural form of the noun. The numbers “one," "two,” and “three” are inflected, the latter two only in certain cases. Numbers are considered a special case of adjectives, and have special rules for when they take strong vs. weak endings.
•	The “genitive attribute” is a phrase that in English could be written with a possessive or a prepositional phrase using “of,” as in “der Besuch der alten Dame” (the visit of the old lady).
•	The positional attribute is a prepositional phrase indicating location, as “in bed” or “in Berlin” or a demonstrative adjective, such as “over there” ("dort").
•	Nominal modifiers are fairly uncommon in English, but usual in written German and more formal speaking. Thus, in English we would say, "The speech rambled all over the subject." Then we would make a new sentence with a new thought, such as "it was emotional." In German, one could say, "The rambling all over the subject speech was emotional.”
•	Relative clauses are also permissible in the structure. The relative pronouns can be a repetition of the article (meaning that) or a form of "welcher,” which means which. They agree in number and gender with the noun being modified by the clause, and their case from their own function in the clause. Thus, one could insert in the middle of the previous sentence, “The rambling all over the subject speech, which suffered from a defective sound system, was emotional.” A separate, uninflected relative pronoun, “was” is used after "alle" (everything), "etwas" (something), or "nichts" (nothing). For example, "Alles, was Odem hat, lobe den Herrn.“ (“Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.“). Relative clauses are always set off with commas.

Verbs

In English, a verb is weak if it forms its simple past by adding “-ed“ to the stem. A verb is strong if its simple past comes from an internal change in the stem. An example is “hang, hanged, hanged” (executed by hanging) – a weak verb -- and “hang, hung, hung" (suspended, as a picture on the wall) – a strong verb. These two verbs are also weak and strong in German in their cognate form, "hingen.” Features of German verbs are

•	indicative, subjunctive and imperative modes;
•	singular and plural for each of three persons (1st, 2nd, and 3rd with a formal form of address that follows the second person plural, even for persons being addressed in the singular); active and passive moods (with passive being either “static” or “dynamic”);
•	two tenses that are not composed or compounded (present and past);
•	four composed tenses (future and future perfect, and perfect and pluperfect).

Like English German verbs make full use of prefixes to shade or alter meaning (as in "blicken" (to look at) and "erblicken" (to glimpse)). Separable prefix verbs are extremely common, and convey different meaning as well, according the preposition employed. The infinitive form of these verbs is the prefix-plus-stem, as in "abfahren,” to depart. It is derived from "ab-" meaning “away" or "from” and "fahren" meaning to journey. However, when used in its indicative form, the prefix separates and goes to the end, as in "er fahrt ab" (he departs). "Mitgehen" is a German verb meaning "to go with."Are you going along?” becomes "Gehen-Sie mit?" In parts of the English speaking world this is also acceptable: “Are you going with?” In fact, English uses a similar construction even though the preposition is not added to the front of the infinitive, but to the back, as a separate word. Thus "tear" means to cut, rip or shred, and "tear up" means to cut, rip or shred completely. "Tear down" means to dismantle completely. The correct syntax is to put the preposition at the end of the clause, as in German. Compare "They broke the party up" and “Please break the concept down.” Also, “the car broke down, and the couple broke up.”

Verb and Sentence Word Order

The most important part of the sentence – the part to emphasize (if any) – comes right at the beginning, followed by the verb. The nouns – the subject and object -- can have many subordinate elements, as described in the section on Word Order for Nouns, but because they are inflected, it is always clear which is the object and which the subject. Thus, if the object is most important, for emphasis it can be put in first position. This will not confuse German-speakers, who know from the inflection of the article that it is an object. First position can equally go to the subject, or even to an adverb of time (like "tomorrow,” which is generally in third position. If “tomorrow” is most important, it goes first. After any time adverbs, in fourth and fifth positions come the subject and object, if not already used in first position. The order does not matter. With separable prefix verbs, the prefix is attached to the end of the sentence. With compound verbs and modal verbs (like ought to, want to, must, shall, for example) the auxiliary verb ("dürfen,” "willen,” "müßen,” "warden") is conjugated and placed in second position. Then the infinite form of the verb is placed at the end. In questions, exclamations and expressions of hope or desire, the conjugated form of the verb moves to first position. In subordinate clauses, the verb that occupies second (or first) position, moves to the end, as in "Ich weiß nicht was soll es bedeuten, daß ich so traurig bin." (“I don't know what it’s supposed to mean that I’m so woeful.”). Independent clauses, linked by coordinating conjunctions, follow the rule for main clauses, so the inflected part of the verb stays in its usual second position. Finally, infinitives, being relegated to the end of a main clause, can pile up if several layers are implied in the construction. An example might be, in English, "He wanted to ask the barber to cut his hair," which literally would be, "he wanted the barber his hair to cut to ask.” Theoretically several infinitives can pile up at the end of the sentence, like so many cars in a freeway accident, but good form restricts the number in modern times to two, and on elegant occasions, three. Otherwise, the sentence would be recomposed to avoid the problem.

German Vocabulary

German words are essentially the result of the evolution of Indo-European words into the lexicon of the Germanic tribes. A few words have been imported from Latin and Greek, and in modern times, from French and English. Except in England, where the Saxons were conquered by the Normans, Germanic speech has tended not to accept the Romance language word, but rather, convert the word into Germanic speech. For example, the verb “to subject” (which means literally, “to throw under” was not imported into German with its Latin syllables, but rather was converted to a Germanic word, "unterwerfen," which means the same thing etymologically. The creation of neologous German versions of foreign words is considered elegant style, followed in legislative and judicial drafting.

Counting the number of words in German is tricky, as new words can always be devised by making amalgams of existing words. A simple example is “Aufwiedersehn,” which means “until [we] see [each other] again.” Three words concatenated into one. Additionally, German technical terms have an almost endless range of combinational possibilities. An educated speaker of German will use perhaps as many as 20,000 words in normal speech, and will be able to understand and use as many as 100,000 words.