Introduction 1 About This Book 1 Conventions Used in This Book 1 Foolish Assumptions 2 How This Book Is Organized 2 Part I: The Building Blocks of German 3 Part II: Getting Started Now: Writing in the Present 3 Part III: Fine Tuning Your Writing with Flair 3 Part IV: Looking Back and Ahead: Writing in the Past and the Future 3 Part V: The Part of Tens 3 Part VI: Appendixes 3 Icons Used in This Book 4 Where to Go from Here 4 Part I: The Basic Building Blocks of German 5 Chapter 1: Assembling the Basic Tools for German Sentences 7 Grasping German Grammar Terms 7 Conjugating verbs and understanding tenses 8 Getting gender, number, and case 9 Understanding word order 10 Grammar terms that describe words, parts of words, and word groupings 10 Identifying Parts of Speech 11 Finding Meaning through Context 13 Using a Bilingual Dictionary 14 Making the right choice (at the bookstore) 14 Performing a word search 15 Answer Key 17 Chapter 2: Sorting Out Word Gender and Case 19 Rounding Up Grammatical Genders 19 Identifying German genders and figuring out which one to use 20 Corralling plurals 22 Lassoing indefinite articles 24 Missing absentee articles 25 Calling All Cases: The Roles Nouns and Pronouns Play 26 Identifying the four cases 26 Eyeing the similarities and differences 27 Putting Pronouns in Place 29 Personal pronouns 29 Relating to relative pronouns 30 Demonstrating demonstrative pronouns 32 Answer Key 34 Chapter 3: Laying the Foundations of German 37 Doing the Numbers 37 Counting off with cardinal numbers 37 Getting in line with ordinal numbers 40 Was Ist das Datum? Expressing Dates 42 On the Clock: Expressing Time 44 Naming Countries, Nationalities, and Languages 46 Eyeing German-speaking countries 46 Grammatically speaking about countries, nationalities, and languages 47 German neighbors and trading partners 48 Answer Key 50 Chapter 4: Building Your Word Power 51 Working With Word Combinations 51 Spotting compound nouns 52 Describing picture compound nouns 54 Checking out verb combinations 55 Grasping Word Families and Word Categories 56 Working with word families 56 Picture that! Working with word categories 58 Streamlining Word Storage 60 Recognizing cognates and near cognates 60 False friends: Bad buddies 62 Answer Key 64 Part II: Getting Started Now: Writing in the Present 67 Chapter 5: Grasping the Present Tense 69 Simplifying Subject Pronouns and Their Relationship to Verbs 69 Making sure "you" dresses for the occasion: The formality of du/ihr and Sie 70 Distinguishing among sie, sie, and Sie 71 Getting Your Verbs in Shape: Present-Tense Conjugations 73 Agreeing with the regulars 73 Conjugating verbs with spelling changes 75 Conjugating the irregulars haben and sein: To have and to be 78 Using the Very Versatile Present Tense 81 Answer Key 83 Chapter 6: Are You Asking or Telling Me? Questions and Commands 85 Inverting Word Order for Yes/No Questions 85 Gathering Information with Question Words: Who, What, Why, and More 87 Checking Information: Tag! You''re It, Aren''t You? 90 Combining Question Words: Compounds with Wo- 91 Making Choices: Asking What Kind of .? 93 Using the Imperative: Do It! 95 Giving orders 95 Requests and suggestions: Looking at question-command hybrids 96 Answer Key 98 Chapter 7: Answering Intelligently with Yes, No, and Maybe 101 Getting to Yes: Variations on Ja 102 Responding with No: The Difference between Kein and Nicht 104 Negating with nicht 104 Negating with kein 106 Avoiding blunt negative replies 108 Explaining Answers Using Da- Compounds 110 Sounding Diplomatic: Using Maybe, Suggesting, and Refusing Politely 112 Answer Key 116 Chapter 8: Describing Your Mood: Summing Up the Subjunctive 119 Terms and Conditions: Unraveling Subjunctive Terminology 119 Getting in the mood 119 Comparing subjunctive types and the conditional 120 Selecting the Present Subjunctive II: How and When to Use It 121 Creating the present Subjunctive II with würde 121 Forming the Subjunctive II of haben, sein, and modal verbs 123 Using the present Subjunctive II 124 Forming and Using the Past Subjunctive II 126 Forming the past Subjunctive II 126 Using the past Subjunctive II 127 Two-timing the past subjunctive: Using double infinitives 128 Subjunctive I: Used in Indirect Discourse 128 Recognizing the present Subjunctive I 129 Recognizing the Past Subjunctive I 130 Answer Key 131 Chapter 9: In the Mood: Combining Verbs with Modal Auxiliaries 133 The 4-1-1 on Modal Verbs 133 Identifying modals: Assistants with attitude 134 Understanding word order and modals 135 May I? Dürfen, the Permission Verb 135 You Can Do It! Können, the Ability Verb 136 I Like That: Mögen, the Likeable Verb 139 What Would You Like? Möchten, the Preference Verb 141 Do I Have To? Müssen, the Verb of Necessity 142 Should I or Shouldn''t I? Sollen, the Duty Verb 143 I Want to Be Famous: Wollen, the Intention Verb 144 Answer Key 147 Chapter 10: Sorting Out Separable- and Inseparable- Prefix Verbs 149 Looking at the Prefix 149 Simplifying Separable-Prefix Verbs 150 Using verbs in the present tense 152 Using verbs in the simple past 153 Using verbs in present perfect tense 154 Investigating Inseparable-Prefix Verbs 155 Dealing with Dual-Prefix Verbs: To Separate or Not to Separate? 159 Answer Key 162 Part III: Fine Tuning Your Writing with Flair 165 Chapter 11: Sounding More Like a Native with Verb Combinations 167 Set in Their Ways: Grasping Idiomatic Verb Expressions 167 In the Looking Glass: Reflecting on Reflexive Verbs 168 Self-ish concerns: Meeting the reflexive pronouns 168 Identifying which verbs need to be reflexive 170 Combining Verbs with Prepositions 172 ID-ing common combos in the accusative case 174 Eyeing common combos in the dative case 175 Answer Key 177 Chapter 12: Adding Adjectives for Description 179 Organizing Adjectives: Opposites, Cognates, and Collocations 179 Letting opposites attract 180 A family resemblance: Describing with cognates 182 Traveling companions: Describing with collocations 183 Helping Adjectives Meet a Satisfying End 185 Forming endings on adjectives not preceded by der- or ein- words 185 Preceded adjectives: Forming the endings 187 Using Possessive Adjectives: My Place or Your Place? 188 Answer Key 190 Chapter 13: Comparing with Adjectives and Adverbs 193 Comparing Regular Adjectives and Adverbs: Fast, Faster, Fastest 193 Comparing two things 194 Absolutely the most! Discussing superlatives 195 Considering common comparisons 195 Adding the umlaut in regular comparisons 198 Using Irregular Comparison Forms 199 Comparing Equals and Nonequals 200 Identifying Unique Adjective and Adverb Groups 202 Adjectives that act as nouns 202 Participles that function as adjectives or adverbs 203 Adverbs that modify adjectives 204 Answer Key 205 Chapter 14: Connecting with Conjunctions 207 Conjunctions and Clauses: Terminating Terminology Tangles 207 Connecting with Coordinating Conjunctions 208 Working on word order: Coordinating conjunctions 209 Using coordinating conjunctions 211 Connecting with Subordinating Conjunctions 212 Using subordinating conjunctions 213 Using the correct word order 214 Answer Key 216 Chapter 15: Your Preposition Primer 217 Prepping for Prepositions: Basic Guidelines 217 Getting the importance of case 218 Understanding what it all means 219 Accusative, Dative, and Genitive Cases: How the Rest of the Phrase Shapes Up 219 No finger pointing: Accusative prepositions 220 Dative prepositions 221 Genitive prepositions 224 Tackling Two-Way Prepositions: Accusative/Dative 225 Understanding Quirky Combinations 227 Answer Key 229 Part IV: Looking Back and Ahead: Writing in the Past and the Future 231 Chapter 16: Conversing about the Past: Perfecting the Present Perfect 233 Forming the Present Perfect with Haben 233 Forming the present perfect with regular weak verbs 234 Forming the present perfect with irregular weak verbs 236 Forming the present perfect with strong verbs 237 Forming the Present Perfect with Sein 239 Eyeing the Present Perfect: German versus English 241 One for all: Representing three English tenses 241 Opting for the German present 242 Outing the Oddball Verbs 242 Separable-prefix verbs 242 Inseparable prefix verbs 244 Verbs ending in -ieren 245 Answer Key 247 Chapter 17: Narrating the (Simple) Past: Fact and Fiction 249 Conjugating the Simple Past 249 Forming regular (weak) verbs in simple past 251 Forming irregular (strong) verbs in s.