German grammar?
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Brian Wiese
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German grammar?
I teach German students. One thing I constantly tell them is to put the subject first, followed by the verb and then the object if necessary. In German it is possible to say, for example, "Im Schrank liegt eine Packung." Literally translated, this means "In the cupboard lies a package." I constantly tell them this is not possible in English, that they must say "A package lies in the cupboard." But is this really true? First of all, we could use "there" and put the subject after the verb, e.g. "There lies a package in the cupboard." But even without the use of "there," this style is sometimes used in English. I try to go by instinct in judging these sentences, but it is also possible that because I now know what is correct in german, the closest language to English, I think it is also correct in English! My question is, how do I know when it is incorrect to use this form?!
Hi Brian,
I teach in Germany so your problem is familiar.
First of all – an obvious thing, but sometimes so obvious it is forgotten: make sure your students know the grammatical terms subject, verb, object and can identify them in a sentence. A lot of my students esp. at the local VHS aren’t familiar with the grammatical parts of speech and are too shy to admit it because they presume *everyone else knows it*.
Secondly: I think that becoming familiar with word order is something that students not only have to be taught but also have to get a ‘feel’ for – by reading texts in English, hearing English spoken *correctly*, by having their written work corrected, and being corrected when they speak. I generally play dumb when it comes to word order, I have a hand signal I use to indicate that the word order is incorrect (kind of a ‘swop-around’ hand signal) or with beginners, I assign each word a finger, crossing the fingers where the words are in the wrong place. This is tricky, though – be careful or you’ll confuse yourself and the students!!
I generally practise with students by handing out cards I have prepared. I have, for example, 4-5 different coloured pieces of paper. On one I write different subjects: Jane/I/He/They/Our neighbours, on the next verbs (declined): go/saw/ate/have eaten, then objects : cake/the dog/him; then adverbs :yesterday/in the cupboard etc. In any case you should be able to make sentences *that make sense* from these words. You then cut up the words so students get a lot of different coloured squares with single words on them. You ask them to make sentences, and they should do so. Get them to walk around, correcting each other’s sentences, where necessary (usually laughing at the results). I have a ‘master copy’ of the words, enlarged so students can see them on the board. As a group, we put together the sentences, which are hung on the board. After a sentence or two, students should see (or have probably noticed already) the colour pattern. Point out what all the red words are (the subject – the ‘do-er’ in the sentence) etc. Note that adverbs of time, for example, can go at the beginning or end of the sentence but the subject-verb-object pattern still stays the same.
Re. Im Schrank liegt eine Packung.
(I have to admit, I would debate the fact that German is the closest language to English, but that’s another subject!) The possibilities you mentioned:
"In the cupboard lies a package." – wrong, directly translated from German
“There lies a package in the cupboard" is somewhat archaic or poetic. If I used this, people would look at me strangely, as thought I were about to start speaking like Shakespeare – “Look! There lies a damsel on yonder lawn!” heh heh
In English we generally substitute the German verbs ‘liegen’ (wie "Im Schrank liegt eine Packung“) or stehen (wie: „Im Regal steht eine Flasche’) with the form ‚There is / There are ...’ In other words: “There’s a package in the cupboard” or “There’s a bottle on the shelf.” This is particularly hard for Germans to master because there is so much L1 interference with the other form. As a result, it is something that I make sure to practise even with advanced students because incorrect use (or lack of use) is a bad habit that is hard to shake.
Hope this is useful,
Rania
I teach in Germany so your problem is familiar.
First of all – an obvious thing, but sometimes so obvious it is forgotten: make sure your students know the grammatical terms subject, verb, object and can identify them in a sentence. A lot of my students esp. at the local VHS aren’t familiar with the grammatical parts of speech and are too shy to admit it because they presume *everyone else knows it*.
Secondly: I think that becoming familiar with word order is something that students not only have to be taught but also have to get a ‘feel’ for – by reading texts in English, hearing English spoken *correctly*, by having their written work corrected, and being corrected when they speak. I generally play dumb when it comes to word order, I have a hand signal I use to indicate that the word order is incorrect (kind of a ‘swop-around’ hand signal) or with beginners, I assign each word a finger, crossing the fingers where the words are in the wrong place. This is tricky, though – be careful or you’ll confuse yourself and the students!!
I generally practise with students by handing out cards I have prepared. I have, for example, 4-5 different coloured pieces of paper. On one I write different subjects: Jane/I/He/They/Our neighbours, on the next verbs (declined): go/saw/ate/have eaten, then objects : cake/the dog/him; then adverbs :yesterday/in the cupboard etc. In any case you should be able to make sentences *that make sense* from these words. You then cut up the words so students get a lot of different coloured squares with single words on them. You ask them to make sentences, and they should do so. Get them to walk around, correcting each other’s sentences, where necessary (usually laughing at the results). I have a ‘master copy’ of the words, enlarged so students can see them on the board. As a group, we put together the sentences, which are hung on the board. After a sentence or two, students should see (or have probably noticed already) the colour pattern. Point out what all the red words are (the subject – the ‘do-er’ in the sentence) etc. Note that adverbs of time, for example, can go at the beginning or end of the sentence but the subject-verb-object pattern still stays the same.
Re. Im Schrank liegt eine Packung.
(I have to admit, I would debate the fact that German is the closest language to English, but that’s another subject!) The possibilities you mentioned:
"In the cupboard lies a package." – wrong, directly translated from German
“There lies a package in the cupboard" is somewhat archaic or poetic. If I used this, people would look at me strangely, as thought I were about to start speaking like Shakespeare – “Look! There lies a damsel on yonder lawn!” heh heh
In English we generally substitute the German verbs ‘liegen’ (wie "Im Schrank liegt eine Packung“) or stehen (wie: „Im Regal steht eine Flasche’) with the form ‚There is / There are ...’ In other words: “There’s a package in the cupboard” or “There’s a bottle on the shelf.” This is particularly hard for Germans to master because there is so much L1 interference with the other form. As a result, it is something that I make sure to practise even with advanced students because incorrect use (or lack of use) is a bad habit that is hard to shake.
Hope this is useful,
Rania
I also teach in Germany and I admit sometimes a student will say a sentence that I'm not sure is grammatically correct or not, but I know doesn't sound natural. I then correct them and tell them that a native speaker wouldn't say it like that. If they pin me down and say "But is it wrong?" I will admit that no, it probably isn't technically wrong, but it will take whoever is listening to you another couple of seconds to figure out what you are talking about. I feel that the purpose for most of my students is communication, not absolutely perfect English, so I go not for what is only correct, but what works best.
I think you have got very good answers to your query! I particularly go along with rania's statement that students need a thorough knowledge of sentence parts, not just the kinds of words (verb, noun, article, adjective, adverb) but also terms such as subject, predicate, object etc.
The English "there is/are" is quite easy to learn but it requires a bit of training as it has a very exact German equikvalent, namely "es gibt". Note that in both phrasal constructions, there is no subject; the German "es gibt" has a "demonic Es' similar to the weather ("es schneit" - who is "es"?).
But even so, Germans might be inclined to shift sentence parts around:
"Es gibt eine Packung im schrank" "im Schrank gibt es eine Packung..."
and carry that over into English. The reason is that German, similar to English, moves certain sentence parts around due to a need for EMPHASIS. An English example: "In God we trust!" should make this plausible, I think!
The English "there is/are" is quite easy to learn but it requires a bit of training as it has a very exact German equikvalent, namely "es gibt". Note that in both phrasal constructions, there is no subject; the German "es gibt" has a "demonic Es' similar to the weather ("es schneit" - who is "es"?).
But even so, Germans might be inclined to shift sentence parts around:
"Es gibt eine Packung im schrank" "im Schrank gibt es eine Packung..."
and carry that over into English. The reason is that German, similar to English, moves certain sentence parts around due to a need for EMPHASIS. An English example: "In God we trust!" should make this plausible, I think!
Thanks Roger!
And now short German lecture, heh heh, skip if not interesting - for those of you who are native English speakers teaching in Germany, it might be of use.
Although German has a close equivalent to 'There is...' it is unfortunately not the only way to express this notion and, according to where you are in Germany, it might be the less used alternative as it is here in my part of Bavaria. Here you can say
"Es GIBT eine Flasche am Tisch" (There is a bottle on the table) or
Es IST eine Flasche am Tisch. (It is a bottle on the table - means the same as 'there is...' but, as you can see, uses a similar construction to another English one)
There is a slight diffference in meaning between the two but actually the same expression in English. In my experience the use of 'es'/'it' is not problematic at all but rather the tendnecy for speakers to attach a German meaning to a similar English construction. As a result - though it may seem laboured to some students - it is often necessary to quickly recap the use of There is/are. Otherwise you have the sort of conversations I have with my German boyfriend:
Rania: Is there a knife on the table?
Him: Yes it is.
Rania: Is what?
Him: The knife.
Rania: What about it? Is there one there or not?
etc!
Hours of *fun* guaranteed!
And now short German lecture, heh heh, skip if not interesting - for those of you who are native English speakers teaching in Germany, it might be of use.
Although German has a close equivalent to 'There is...' it is unfortunately not the only way to express this notion and, according to where you are in Germany, it might be the less used alternative as it is here in my part of Bavaria. Here you can say
"Es GIBT eine Flasche am Tisch" (There is a bottle on the table) or
Es IST eine Flasche am Tisch. (It is a bottle on the table - means the same as 'there is...' but, as you can see, uses a similar construction to another English one)
There is a slight diffference in meaning between the two but actually the same expression in English. In my experience the use of 'es'/'it' is not problematic at all but rather the tendnecy for speakers to attach a German meaning to a similar English construction. As a result - though it may seem laboured to some students - it is often necessary to quickly recap the use of There is/are. Otherwise you have the sort of conversations I have with my German boyfriend:
Rania: Is there a knife on the table?
Him: Yes it is.
Rania: Is what?
Him: The knife.
Rania: What about it? Is there one there or not?
etc!
Hours of *fun* guaranteed!