German For Beginners

Language learning is often considered to be rocket science. While it has nothing to do with actual rockets, it can sometimes be quite difficult, especially when you're confronted with a rather complex language like German. You hear about difficult grammatical cases like "Akusativ "or "Dativ ", and you end up feeling overwhelmed. But essentially, the secret to learning German lies in talking as much as possible.

I have always suggested that you shouldn't worry about grammar too much in the beginning. Don't let complicated rules get in the way of out what you actually want to do: to speak German. Of course, you will be getting a lot of things wrong when starting out. But to me, the thing that boosts your language skills like nothing else is shamelessly speaking your target language as much as possible. And I recommend doing it from the very first day of learning. It's learning by doing really, just like how children do it.

But where do you begin? How can you start talking if you have zero knowledge about the language you want to learn? I've discovered a very simple system to start out with any language that I call the 10x10x10 method. Of course, you can use this for any language, but in this article – since I'm a German teacher – I'm going to use German as an example.

Basically, the method states that once you know 10 nouns, 10 verbs and 10 adjectives, you can form 1000 sentences. Quite a lot already, right? Of course, some of them won't make too much sense, but 800 phrases are not too bad either, aren't they? And anyone can learn 30 vocabulary words in a few days. I picked out here what I believe are the most valuable 10 words of each category. Here we go!

Nouns

1. Der Mann – the man
2. Die Frau – the woman
3. Das Kind – the child
4. Das Auto – the car
5. Das Brot – the bread
6. Das Haus – the house
7. Die Stadt – the city
8. Das Land – the country
9. Das Geld – the money
10. Das Buch – the book

Verbs

(I added the present tense conjugations.)

1. sein – to be
   • ich bin   
   • du bist   
   • er / sie / es ist
   • wir sind   
   • ihr seid
   • sie sind
2. sehen – to see
   • ich sehe   
   • du siehst   
   • er / sie / es sieht
   • wir sehen
   • ihr seht
   • sie sehen
3. werden – to become
   • ich werde
   • du wirst
   • er / sie / es wird
   • wir werden
   • ihr werdet   
   • sie werden
4. gehen – to go
   • ich gehe
   • du gehst
   • er / sie / es geht
   • wir gehen
   • ihr geht
   • sie gehen
5. verlassen – to leave
   • ich verlasse   
   • du verlässt
   • er / sie / es verlässt
   • wir verlassen
   • ihr verlasst
   • sie verlassen
6. kommen – to come
   • ich komme
   • du kommst
   • er / sie / es kommt
   • wir kommen
   • ihr kommt
   • sie kommen
7. essen – to eat
   • ich esse
   • du isst   
   • er / sie / es isst   
   • wir essen
   • ihr esst
   • sie essen
8. brauchen – to need
   1. ich brauche
   2. du brauchst
   3. er / sie / es braucht   
   4. wir brauchen
   5. ihr braucht
   6. sie brauchen
9. wachsen – to grow
   1. ich wachse
   2. du wächst
   3. er / sie / es wächst
   4. wir wachsen
   5. ihr wachst
   6. sie wachsen
10. geben – to give
    1. ich gebe
    2. du gibst
    3. er / sie / es gibt
    4. wir geben
    5. ihr gebt   
    6. sie geben

Adjectives

1. schwarz – black
2. weiß – white
3. groß – big
4. klein – small
5. lang – long
6. kurz –     short
7. gut – good
8. schlecht – bad
9. schön – beautiful
10. hässlich – ugly

Now, as you have seen, you'll actually be learning a bit more than just 30 words, because you will be learning the conjugations of the verbs, as well as the basic personal pronouns. But don't worry, you will acquire the extra knowledge naturally as you study your vocabulary. I suggest you make 30 vocabulary cards, one for each word that I recommend here. Of course, feel free to replace some of them, if you can think of words that are more relevant to you and what you want to say.

I don't think you have to study a lot until you know these few basic words by heart. And once you know them, you can express yourself in German! Here are some examples of what you can say now:

• Das Haus ist groß. - The house is big.
• Die Frau ist schön. - The woman is beautiful.
• Die Stadt wächst. - The city grows.
• Ich verlasse das Land. - I leave the country.
• Wir essen Brot. - We eat bread.
• Das Buch ist gut. - The book is good.

As you see, you have now acquired a really good stock of words for various situations and opinions. I urge you to go out and practice these words all the time. You see a black car driving by? Just say in your head: "Das Auto ist schwarz. "You see a tall man in the street? "Der Mann ist groß. "You can also comment on your daily activities: "Ich gebe das Geld. Ich esse das Brot. "As you do this, a very important thing happens: you get a feel for the language. You see patterns in conjugation and sentence structure. You see similarities between German and English. You start to get to know how German is spoken and what it feels like. That's a great point to move on from and dive deeper into the language.

I hope this simple method helps you to get a good headstart into learning German. As I have said, don't worry too much about things like grammar or complicated rules in the beginning. It's always better to start talking right off the bat, and then fine-tune your language later on. Be like a child, and express yourself in the most basic way! I firmly believe that this is the best and fastest way to learn a new language.