The other language learning you tube videos are pretty useless from my experience. Laura is different. She is a very gifted teacher and her videos are priceless. Thank you Laura.
I've been living in Germany for 8 years and started learning German about 1 year ago. I found it almost impossible to understand this part of their grammer, simply because they try to teach German by only speaking in German. For someone like me, who only knows English, explaining these grammer rules in English is really the only way for me to comprehend how they work, how and when to use them. Thanks for taking the time to make these videos. Hopefully I'll be able to pass this B1 test in a couple of months.
I can totally understand where you are coming from. I live in Turkey and all my Turkish lessons were in Turkish when it was my first year living in Turkey and I didn't know nothing about the language. I don't know why they teach like that worldwide. They could have just explained in English as most students, including me, could speak English as a second language anyway. And that's how we were and are actually still communicating among each other. Seriously attending these lessons was horrible 😂💔 so glad I'm over with them.
It is very frustrating. I am in austria right now in the same situation. I think teaching german in german is beneficial after B1 once all grammer rules are comprehended by the learner. Not necessarily memorized. Trying to initially teach grammar rules speaking with the grammar rules the learner does not understand yet does not help with comprehension. Just confusion. And when learners are confused, they get frustrated and it takes away the fun. I think that is why so many highly motivated people quit the language which is very sad
@martasluxuries1275 I would suggest delaying the classes and teaching yourself the Grammer rules, then taking a placement test after you have a better understanding. That, or you could find another way to adapt and overcome on your own terms. The classroom setting didn't work for me, so that was part of my solution. What options do you have?
Yes. German grammar is challenging and I am going to have to invest time into really grasping what Laura has presented. However, the explanation that she has given encourages me to believe that I have been provided with a sound basis on which to get to where I need to be. As others have said below, Laura really knows how to teach effectively. What has surprised me is that I have not only bought into Laura's mantra that 'You must begin with German grammar when trying to learn the language' but I am enjoying that journey into the language because of Laura's imaginative explanations.
thank you so much for making these videos! i've been learning german solo and been struggling - but your videos are so enlightening i really appreciate them
For the first time in my life the cases make a small amount of sense, you actually managed to put them into a coherent lesson - bravo. Completely amazing. Thankyou.
I have been struggling with Grammer my entire life, I had watched a lot of videos to different people, but yours are different and easy to understand, Don't stop making videos and enlighteneing us with your knowledge 😍 Love from Egypt 😍
I am not learning German, but I am trying to learn more English grammar rules/terminology as an Italian student. You are so lovely! Love your energy as a teacher :-)
You’re one of a kind… as a polyglot myself struggling with german, the way you teach German is just genius… I wish you much success…. You deserve it 🥰🥰🥰🌹🌹🌹👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼
Thank you, thank you, thank you!! For the first time in months I think it's finally getting in to my brain! I have THREE different courses in German that I'm doing because every time I get to this part I'm hitting my head against the wall! I switch courses hoping that maybe it'll be explained differently in a way that makes sense. I guess I just needed to hear it from an English speaker! I feel like I finally have a handle on it! Thanks so much!
Part of the problem for those of us in the United States is that they stopped teaching grammar in English classes after the third grade. Then when they finally permitted us to learn a foreign language in seventh grade, the teacher had to teach us the English grammar first, as Laura is doing (slightly different than I was taught), in order to first learn the concept in English.
I have seen it explained simpler : The woman sings to her baby a song. The woman, the Normative. Find the verb - sings: sings what or whom - the song the direct object. To whom: To her baby the indirect object.
Laura, your videos are so useful and the way you explain is always so clear. I am taking my time with the foundations and your videos are so useful. Thank you so much for your entire channel!
This has got to be THE most helpful and informative video I've found on this topic. I've struggled with this for years, which has made translating German to English (and vice versa) very difficult for me. But now I feel like I can finally understand one of the most important grammatical aspects of German, and thus have an immensely better understanding of the rest of the language! I definitely just found the most helpful, and easy to digest resources on the Internet! Thank you so so much 🙏🙏
Thank you , Laura. You are doing a great and useful work for helping world community. German is a fascinating language. Danke schön, Laura. 🥇🏆🥇🏆🥇🏆🥇🏆🥇🏆⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Seven minutes into the video and my mind is blown! That's how you make a point! Fantastic video Laura! OR should I say: Video fantastic Laura! (Hope this still makes sense)
I have been plugging away at this for the last few weeks and this is the first time I have actually understood the accusative and dative cases. Wonderful teaching, thank you!
Thank you so much. I’ve watched a lot of videos on the case system and this one has definitely been the most enlightening for me. Literally multiple light bulb moments during this video lol
Hi, I found your video while search a good German language videos and It is really proud way of teaching that you did. I impressed all the videos that you uploaded. Thank you very much
This video surprised me so much. I mean, in despite my native language has own case system, I've never thought deeply how it actually works;) and here I just realized how HARD it should seem to native English speakers... brilliant explanation!
Thanks for the feedback! The genitive case is valuable to learn later on in your journey to fluency, and I look forward to including information on that case in my future courses. :-)
This is such an awesome video.. no digression from the topic and all the information is accurately relevant to the topic in hand. Thanks for this vid, you've earned my like and subscribe 😊
simply a master of your craft, many thanks, and hats off !, I think you should have a channel on twitch, or a Discord server for a more interactive sessions.
From a Spaniard native point of view, either this is not that complicated or you made a more than excellent work explaining it. Actually in my generation we all learned Latin at school (Already a dead language, I am old but not that old), and maybe, I am wrong, but it seems German Cases is where it is rooted from.
latin has 6 grammatical cases, german has 4 of the same cases of the latin language. Its not that they derive from each other, its rather that latin and german both share a common ancestor language that had these cases and many more, I believe there are languages with 20 cases or something.
Latin and German are both descended from Proto-indoeuropean. German grammar does not derive anything from Latin. After splitting off from Proto-indoeuropean, different language families were formed, most notably, in Europe, is Germanic and Italic. You can obviously tell that German is from the Germanic family. Latin is from the Italic family. Being essentially cousins, it is no surprise that similarities can be found amongst Germanic and Italic languages. Hope you find this little tidbit of linguistic history interesting :) I'm just into hobby study, so someone more learned would be much better to correct me if I'm wrong on anything.
I like german cases Sanskrit has them too: महीला(Womam in nomitive singular case) तस्याः (her) लघवे (small in dative singular) शिशवे (baby in dative singular) एकम् (one in accusative singular) गीतम् (song in accusative singular) गायति (sings in third person singular)
I first encountered the case system as a native English speaker four years ago while learning Russian. That's six cases, folks! Incredibly confusing and painful at first. But once the concept finally clicks it's actually highly enjoyable. So my advice to German learners is, ''Hang in there!'' Everything will gradually become clear to you in time.
Hii Laura!! I just love your video simple yet effective..I have a question identify cases in following sentence The student gives the teacher whom he admires an apple ; here student is nominative apple accusative teacher dative, then what case whom belongs to?
This is a deeper grammar discussion to be sure but here’s the short answer. Der Schüler (nominative) schenkt dem Lehrer (dative), den er bewundert, einen Apfel (accusative). The ‘den er bewundert’ is a relative clause that has its own sentence structure. Er is nominative, bewundert the conjugated verb, and den is an accusative pronoun that is replacing the noun Lehrer in the clause. Hope this helps!
Thank you for explaining cases so clearly. In your free course about cases, u hv stated that the noun which receives action is nominative cases or subject and noun which takes action is direct object. It got a bit confusing. Can you explain?
Hi Laura, I really like the videos. I have a question about the cases. Do Germans really pay attention to the use of correct cases in their normal everyday conversations? Like younger people hanging out or kids out on the playground? I am an American English speaker and I know I don't always use correct grammer! Thanks
Ich habe das Gefühl, ich gucke in einen Spiegel :D Als DAF-Lehrerin versuche ich genau so (inklusive Gestik und Stimmlage, hihi), das Konzept der Fälle im Großen und Ganzen zu erklären, bevor es an die Deklinationen etc. geht. Denn nicht umsonst sind alle Schüler*innen, die in ihrer Muttersprache nicht mit Fällen vertraut sind, völlig überfordert. Dabei hat dieses - zugegebenermaßen komplizierte - System durchaus seine Berechtigung und führt zum goldenen Ziel einer jeden Sprache: effiziente, klare Kommunikation mit möglichst wenig Raum für Missverständnisse ;)
it took a less than 20 minutes video for me to understand something i couldn't comprehend in the span of 4 years that i have lived in Germany for. this is truly absurd but in a good way. i don't even know what to say
I am from Madurai, India, English is a foreign language and learned in the home country never been to any English speaking countries. Now I am learning German through English. I am at the A1 level. I hope
I'm interested in learning German, I've studied Latin and Greek in school so I'm pretty confident with cases and I know how they works, is it actually the same? That would be very helpful then, thanks!
I want to say that they may still have the same concepts, but I believe that Latin/Greek may have even more cases than German. Unfortunately, I don't know enough about Latin and Greek to speak with authority on the subject.
I wanted to ask you where can i find word in german like i know how to learn vocabilery but i dont have the vocabilery to learn because google transleat does not seem to me so trustabale
Would a sentence ever skip over the accusative and go straight to the dative? For example, "The woman sings to her little baby". Are we still looking at Nominative, verb, Dative, or does something here change?
From what I'm aware of, yes. Since we have 'to', or 'zu' in German. The 'zu' is a dative preposition which makes it obvious that the woman sings TO the baby.
At 6:17, item 3, Ein Lied singt die Frau ihrem kleinen baby. To me it sounds just as nonsenseical as the english varient. A song sings a woman her little baby. Unfortunately, I stuck Laura. Can you break this down a bit more? At 11:30, could I also say Ein Lied singt Die Frau? Again, that makes no sense. A song sings a woman. You'll have to explain further.
Sorry for the delay on this! The tricky thing with word order is that both variants mean the same thing in English. Both, “Die Frau singt ihrem kleinen Baby ein Lied,” and “Ein Lied singt die Frau ihrem kleinen Baby,” would translate to the English as “The woman sings a song to her little baby.” The purpose of flexible word order in German is to provide emphasis. In English, we use our tone of voice to provide emphasis. In German, it is the placement of the words that provides emphasis. You can absolutely say “Ein Lied singt die Frau.” Hope this helps. - Lindsay, GwL Team
Better to think of the genitive case as relating two nouns directly to each other, such as ‘the father of the bride.’ Then we also have what I would dub possessive determiners such as the her that we are using in 'her little baby.'
This video changed my life. I feel like my third eye has opened and I have had an epiphany. Two years of learning german and I've always felt so lost... Maybe god does exist.
I have to be missing something. The German sentences also do not make sense. "Ihrem klienen Baby singt die Frau ein Leid" = "The small baby sings the Woman a song" WHAT AM I MISSING?
The declensions are the big clue here. "Ihrem kleinen Baby singt die Frau ein Leid" translates to "the woman sings a song to her little baby." German allows us to rearrange the order of the nouns (with anything proceeding them) to put emphasis on that element. The emphasis with this order is that she's singing to *her little baby*, not to the dog, or an adult, or anything else.
@@GermanwithLaura There has to be a better way to explain this, I've been trying for a year in your paid course and can simply NOT understand it the way it's being presented. This is keeping me from buying your second course.
I'm so sorry for the confusion! This is a very big subject which is why I chose to wait until German Foundations 2 to really dive into sentence patterns. I would love to have you email my team at hello@germanwithlaura.com to discuss your ongoing concerns.
Hi there. I wanted to follow up since we haven't received an email, and am now seeing that the email autocorrected and should have said hallo@germanwithlaura.com. I am so very sorry about this. If you tried to send an email, could you please resend to hallo@germanwithlaura.com and I or someone on my team will get back to you? Thanks and my apologies!
What about this sentence? The woman sings to her baby. Is the baby accusative in this sentence? It makes sense to me as a native English speaker but based on the definition in the video, the only second noun that can be used in addition to the woman, is a song. Yes, "The woman sings a song" is fine. But so is, "The woman sings to her baby". The rule in the video for distinguishing between accusative and dative doesn't seem to apply so well. I have more faith in Laura's knowledge of grammar than mine, which begs the question, what have I missed?
The preposition 'to' (zu) is what changes everything here. 'Zu' in German is a dative preposition, so it would still be obvious that the baby is being sung TO (instead of baby vs. a song being what is sung [acc.]) and it is certainly possible to have sentence patterns that are just nominative + dative (i.e. don't include an accusative object).
