Buttertongue: Speak German like a native - Step 1 (A1)

Let’s learn the interrogatives. In German, interrogatives are called ‘W-Fragen’. It’s because there are always the ‘w’s for the first letter. In this lesson, we are going to learn ‘Wer’, ‘Was’, ‘Wo’, ‘Woher’. In addition, there are also ‘Wann’, ‘Warum’, ‘Wie’. We are only going to learn the first basic four in this lesson. They are used very often in everyday life, so please memorize them together with the examples. The examples suggested here are the most basic.

We have learned how to greet, and how to introduce ourselves. Now it’s time we learn negations. ‘Ja’ is a positive response, while ‘nein’ is a negative response. You just need to say ‘ja’ as a positive response, but there are more things to learn in negative responses. Let’s learn how to continue our sentence after saying ‘nein’.

In this lesson, we are going to learn the vocabulary and culture regarding ‘family’. The front part of Schritt 1 is about self-introduction in German. By taking this lesson, you will learn how to introduce your family in addition to yourself.

In this lesson, we are going to learn about numbers. From 1 to 20 the numbers are quite similar to English. It probably won’t be very difficult.

In this lesson, we are going to learn about numbers above 21. Let’s have a look at the example. 23 in German is 'dreiundzwanzig'. You first read the unit digit 'drei', 'und'(and) and then the tenth digit 'zwanzig'. Start reading from the unit digit and then back to tenth digit. It can be a little confusing to those who are used to reading from left to right.

The numbers we have learned in lesson 10 and 11 were cardinals. In this lesson, we are going to learn the ordinal numbers. If you have mastered the cardinal numbers, learning the ordinal numbers won’t be difficult at all. You just need to put '-te' at the end of a number. It’s just that the first(1.) and the third(3.) are a little different.

'Time' in German is 'Zeit'. 'Time of day' is called 'Uhrzeit'. Which happens to be exactly the thing we are going to learn in this lesson! Since we have learned the numbers already, this lesson might be the perfect chance for you to practice and apply them.

This lesson includes a very important feature. It is the definite article (bestimmter Artikel). From the moment where they start learning the definite articles, those who learn German as a foreign language start concerning a lot about how to write the definite articles in a correct form. Every noun has a gender, so you should use the correct definite article to each gender. The plural forms also have their own definite articles. Moreover, each definite article has conjugation. Please don’t rush into it so fast. It’s ok to be a slow learner.

Whereas definite articles before nouns declinate (Deklination), verbs conjugate (Konjugation). In verb conjugation, there is regular conjugation and irregular conjugation. In this lesson, we are going to learn the conjugation of ‘haben’, which is one of the most used verbs along with ‘gehen’ and ‘kommen’, which are typical regular verbs. And we will also learn about another irregular verb called “sprechen”. We will learn more about irregular verbs in lesson 16.

They may be called irregular conjugations, but you can actually find some patterns. The verbs that have 'e' in their root change to 'i' or 'ie'. ‘geben, nehmen, sehen, lesen’ are the more common ones. However, the verb ‘gehen’ has a regular conjugation even with an 'e' in the root.

In this lesson, we will describe two different types of adjectives: predicative(prädikativ) and attributive(attributiv). These terms by themselves are not yet important, so you just need to understand the contents of this lesson. If an adjective modifies a noun, the ending changes. We will learn more about this in lesson 50 and 51.

Time to learn about the personal pronouns. In this lesson, we are going to learn the declension of the first person (ich) and the second person (du/Sie). We will learn the rest in lesson 19. Please continue to lesson 19 after perfectly understanding the first and the second person.

This is the last lesson of 'Schritt 1'. We have learned a lot of things in the past 20 lessons. Some of you might have started from the very beginning with Buttertongue, and some might have used this course to review or refresh your existing skills. We believe that you already know German more than you think you do. We think you will have learned a lot simply by listening to Elsa. As your ears and eyes slowly open, you will have unconsciously gained a pretty deep understanding for a beginner. Be confident!