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years at school, and yet whether they have studied the language before or not, many of them still struggle to construct a basic sentence like this when I first meet them.
Admittedly, they might know how to say other far less useful things, like “I’m 37 years old and have two sisters and a goldfish” – an unusual conversation opener from my perspective – but they nevertheless can’t ask someone to come over later.
Well, in just a few minutes’ time, you will be able to do this – even if you’ve never learnt any German before.
Just remember though: don’t skip anything, don’t waste your time trying to memorise anything but do use your bookmark to cover up anything red you find on each page.
Okay now, let’s begin!
“I can” in German is:
Ich kann
(pronounced “ikh kan”1)
And the word for “begin” in German is:
beginnen
(pronounced “baig-in-urn”)
So how would you say “I can begin”?
| Ich kann beginnen (ikh kan baig-in-urn) |
|
Did you remember to cover up the red words while you worked out the answer? |
“Not” in German is:
nicht
(nikht)
Now again, what is “I can”?
ich kann
(ikh kan)
So how would you say “I can not”?
ich kann nicht
(ikh kan nikht)
And so how would you say “I cannot begin”?
Ich kann nicht beginnen.
(ikh kan nikht baig-in-urn)
The word for “bring” in German is:
bringen
(bring-urn)
You will notice very quickly that the word for “bring” in German – “bringen” – is very similar to “bring” in English. In fact, by simply adding an “en” to the end of the English word “bring” we have effectively created the same word in German. And we can actually do the exact same thing with a great number of other English words.
For example, let’s take the English word “camp”/ “to camp”. Now, to say “camp” in German, again we can simply add an “en” to the end of the English word “camp”. Let’s try that now: take the English word “camp” and add “en” onto the end of it. What does that give you?
campen
(camp-urn)
And this means “camp” in German.
Let’s try another example, doing exactly the same thing, but this time let’s use the English word “park” / “to park”. Again, we’ll simply add “en” onto the end of the word “park” and we’ll end up with the word that means “park” in German. So, do that now – add “en” onto the end of the English word “park” and tell me, what is the word that means “park” in German?
parken
(park-urn)
And once again, what is “begin” in German?
beginnen
(baig-in-urn)
And what is “bring”?
bringen
(bring-urn)
And what is “park”?
parken
(park-urn)
Finally, what is “camp”?
campen
(camp-urn)
What was “I can” in German?
ich kann
(ikh kan)
So how would you say “I can camp”?
Ich kann campen.
(ikh kan camp-urn)
What is “not” in German?
nicht
(nikht)
And so what is “I can not” / “I cannot”?
ich kann nicht
(ikh kan nikht)
So, how would you say “I cannot camp”?
Ich kann nicht campen.
(ikh kan nikht camp-urn)
How about “I cannot park”?
Ich kann nicht parken.
(ikh kan nikht park-urn)
And “I cannot begin” / “I can’t begin”?
Ich kann nicht beginnen.
(ikh kan nikht baig-in-urn)
“She can” in German is:
sie kann
(zee kan)
So how would you say “she can begin”?
Sie kann beginnen.
(zee kan baig-in-urn)
How about “she can camp”?
Sie kann campen.
(zee kan camp-urn)
And so how would you say “she can’t camp” / “she cannot camp”?
Sie kann nicht campen.
(zee kan nikht camp-urn)
How about “she can’t begin”?
Sie kann nicht beginnen.
(zee kan nikht baig-in-urn)
So, we’ve got a few of these words now – words like “begin” (beginnen), “camp” (campen), “park” (parken), and “bring” (bringen) – which we’ve found simply by adding an “en” onto the end of an English word. I want to find one more. This time, we’ll try the English word “come”. So, just as we did before, we’ll take the word “come”, and then add “en” onto the end of this, which will hopefully give us the word that means “come” in German. So, take the English word “come” and add “en” onto the end of it. Doing this, what do you get?
Well, if you don’t know any German already, you’ll probably have arrived at something like “comen”.
However, this perhaps is just a bit too English because Germans actually write “come” as:
kommen