Table of Contents

Introduction 1

Part 1: The Basic Building Blocks of German 7

Chapter 1: Laying the Foundations of German 9

Chapter 2: Assembling the Basic Tools for German Sentences 29

Chapter 3: Sorting Out Word Gender and Case 45

Chapter 4: Building Your Word Power 61

Part 2: Focusing on the Present 77

Chapter 5: Grasping the Present Tense 79

Chapter 6: Asking and Answering Intelligently; Giving Orders 97

Chapter 7: In the Mood: Combining Verbs with Modal Auxiliaries 121

Chapter 8: Sorting Out Separable- and Inseparable-Prefix Verbs 141

Part 3: Adding Flair to Your Conversations 159

Chapter 9: Sounding More Like a Native with Verb Combinations 161

Chapter 10: Adding Adjectives for Description 175

Chapter 11: Comparing with Adjectives and Adverbs 197

Chapter 12: Connecting with Conjunctions 217

Chapter 13: Your Preposition Primer 231

Part 4: Looking Back and Ahead: Talking about the Past and the Future 247

Chapter 14: Conversing about the Past: Perfecting the Present Perfect 249

Chapter 15: Narrating the (Simple) Past: Fact and Fiction 263

Chapter 16: Looking to the Future (And Avoiding It) 281

Part 5: The Part of Tens 293

Chapter 17: Ten Tips for Optimizing Your German 295

Chapter 18: Ten Pitfalls to Avoid in German 301

Part 6: Appendixes 307

Appendix A: Verb Charts 309

Appendix B: English-German Dictionary 319

Appendix C: German-English Dictionary 323

Index 327

About the Author

Wendy Foster loves languages. She fell in love with German language and culture while studying abroad in Europe. She then spent 30 years in Munich studying German and traveling to Paris to complete her MA in French. Later, she lived in Spain and immersed herself in Spanish language and culture. She’s now a polyglot living in New England.