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Better German Podcast with Susi

Susanne Schilk-Blümel
Since 09/2023 56 episodes

25 Guide to Learn German Nouns

What you Need to Learn and How

2024-02-29 19 min

Description & Show Notes

Hello and welcome to the Better German Podcast ! In this episode, the host, Susie Blumel, provides a beginner's guide on learning German nouns. She emphasizes the importance of focusing on nouns when first learning the language and provides tips on how to effectively learn and remember them. Susie explains the key components of learning nouns, such as writing and pronouncing the word, understanding its meaning, identifying the article, and learning the plural form.

She also encourages using the words in sentences to solidify learning. If you haven't already, jump into the Better German Community and get free access to all the previous PDF worksheets with wordlists you can use for practice! It's also a great place for you if you have been thinking you need to memorize thousands of words or master endless grammar rules. In this community, we teach German in a clear, simple way—so it actually works!

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Summary
In this episode of the Better German Podcast, host Susie Blumel provides a beginner's guide to learning German nouns. She explains the importance of focusing on nouns when starting to learn a language and outlines the essential information that should be learned for each noun. Susie emphasizes the significance of understanding and using the articles that go with nouns, as well as the importance of practicing using the words in sentences to truly retain them. Listeners will gain practical tips and strategies for effectively learning and retaining German nouns, setting a strong foundation for their language learning journey.

Key Topics Explored🔎

Primary Topic: Introduction to Learning German Nouns
Definition of a Noun
Definition of a noun in German
Other words for noun in German
Importance of Learning Nouns
Description of why nouns are important in language learning
Focus on nouns as the starting point for language learning

Primary Topic: What to Learn When Learning a Noun
Information About the Noun
How to write the word
How to say the word
Meaning of the word
Articles
Explanation of definite articles in German for male, female, and neutral nouns
Importance of understanding and using articles
Plural Forms
Importance of learning plural forms of nouns
Tips for learning plural forms effectively

Primary Topic: Tips for Learning Nouns
Using Words in Sentences
Importance of using the word in sentences verbally and in writing
Advice on making multiple sentences with the word
Retaining Words
Strategies to remember and retain learned words
Suggestions for reinforcing learning when encountering unfamiliar words

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Transcript

Welcome to the Better German podcast. My name is Susi Blümel, and I will teach you German and everything around the language , the countries and the culture. Hello, this is Susie, your German teacher. I'm going to talk to you about learning German, about the German language, about the German culture and a lot of things around this whole topic. In this episode, I'm going to give you a beginner's guide on learning nouns. I'm going to tell you a little bit, a few tips, and some information that I think could be very helpful to have, when you learn German nouns, like how to learn them and what to learn with them. The reason why I'm calling this is a beginner's guide is that when you become advanced, and you have learned most of the German grammar to a point where you know, like a lot of things that you will probably not really use or understand or even need to be honest, before you've learned German for like at least a year or two, Then there is like, once you come to that point, there's probably more to know that then what I'm going to tell you right now. But at this point, I'm going to give you all the things you need to know to learn nouns in a way that is as easy as possible, but also as complete as necessary. Because if you leave out of you have these points, it's going to be very hard for you later to add them. Okay, first of all, what is it noun? A noun in German, by the way, it's called "Nomen." Almost the same. It's of course a word that gives you an object or a thing. The thing that we talk about. A noun is a word like "table window, door," but also it doesn't have to be something that you can touch, it could be an idea. It could be something like "love, feeling, or sun," which we could, I mean, it's a physical thing, but we are not able to touch it. So that is a noun. In German, I'm going to tell you what this is called in German, this is called "Nomen," as I told you. And then there are a couple of other words, for some reason that we use, that mean exactly the same. I can't even tell you why we have so many different ones, but another word, and I'm telling this to you because you find it in dictionaries a lot, is "Substantive." It's the same thing. It means "Noun." This kind of word that I just told you. When you start learning German or any language, what you should do first is focus on nouns. These are the things that describe the objects around you, and, when you start to learn a language, this is the first focus. Learn a few hundred nouns. But what does it mean in German? What do you have to learn when you learn a noun. So first of all, of course you learned a word itself and how to write it. I always suggest to you, for example, when, when you take a German course with me, doesn't matter if it's in person, or like a one on one teaching with me or one of my teachers, or if you do an online course where you will watch widows, I will usually teach, typically teach nouns by giving you a list of nouns. Of maybe 10 or maximum 20 nouns. And, so the first thing is you need to write down. Ideally you'd write it down, I suggest it. I know that not everybody likes writing. I think it's good practice. You need to see and know how do you write the word? And then how do you say the word? Now when you learn by yourself I suggest that you use a dictionary, or you have a word list or you go on YouTube video, and maybe you have a list there and then you of course, need to learn, how do you say that word in German? Then you need the meaning, what does it mean in German? And that is now where most people stop. And so they know maybe, how do you write it? How do you say it? And what does it mean? And that's not so bad. I mean, that's, you could say the absolute irreducible minimum. However, what I suggest to you is to go a little further. The next thing that you should always learn with it, and actually it comes even before, because usually it will be standing before, is the article that goes with it. There is at least one episode I've made about articles. I will link to it in the show notes. So if you have no idea or no real understanding what these articles are and why do we need them and so on, then I suggest you to listen to this episode first. However, I'm just telling you right now, there is three of them, and every object and everything every now and then German, is, has one of those three articles that is connected to it. And what it means is that from a viewpoint of using the language, it is considered to be either female, like a woman, male, like a man or neutral, like a thing. This doesn't necessarily have anything to do with logic. For example in German, the table is "der Tisch." And that means that from a grammar viewpoint, we consider it male. If you think that that's very illogical, that's okay. You can just understand that there are three categories, and three different forms that go with it. And even though this may seem very weird to you if you come from a language that doesn't have this, or a similar way of organizing the language, at this point in time as this is a beginner's guide, I'm just going to tell you, I understand. I suggest to you to get used to it, because it will make things so much easier. When you learn the word, you just learn this article with them. Basically why you need this is because, these words, like when you finally learn to make correct sentences, or when people speak about these things, they refer to it according to these three categories. And if you don't learn them, you will end up not understanding what people talk about. I'm giving you a very simple example. When I say something like, "I bought a new table. It is very big, and nice. And it is standing in my bedroom now." Then in German, I would say, "I bought a new table. He is very big" because the table, as we said is considered male. So I refer to it like "he," And "He is standing, in my bedroom now." And if you don't understand which articles are which, you can be, become very confused, particularly in spoken language, but even in written language. Because people will speak about he's or she's and you have no idea what this could be about, but if you learn the articles with them, then it's fine. However, what you should not do is become desperate about them. And I've seen a lot of students that try to memorize them and, and they become desperate and it's all big drama. So no, that not, but, I suggest you to try to understand articles right from the beginning. And again, I can only suggest to you to listen to the podcast. It's by the way, podcast, Episode 5, but I'm also going to link to it in the show notes, but you can't always find it by going on bettergerman.info, that is my homepage. bettergerman.info/5, and there you will find the podcast Episode 5. You can listen to it right there, but you can also find it wherever you listen to this podcast. So, okay. So we have the meaning, how do you write the word, how do you say the word, the meaning of the word, the article, and then, the last bit of information that you need to learn is the plural. Because the plural forms in German are, I would say more or less arbitrarily. The good news is they are not an infinite way of how we're making plural, but at the end, and this is how we learn it, like every German native speaker learnt it, you just learn what the plural is. So, how do you do that? These are like five informations, how do you write it? How do you say it? What does it mean? The article and, The plural. That's by the way very, very basic, because we said it's an introduction guide. I want to, to give you one more piece of, one more information, just because it's very important that you're aware of it. Maybe at the beginning, you're not going to do very much with it, but a lot of nouns have more than one meaning. That's just the way it is, unfortunately. It's the same thing in English and any other language. Words very often have more than one meaning. So, just so, you know, If, you know, if you seem to know a word and the whole sentence doesn't make any sense, then either that word or possibly another word, we'll have a different meaning than the one that you think it has. But as a beginner, you will probably start learning one meaning, in a certain context. And then later you will add other ones, but you will, always, you should learn these five informations. So how do you do that? Now I'm giving you a few tips, how you can do that. The first thing is use the words, use it in sentences, and I suggest to you to use the word in sentences, both in writing and verbally. So I would start with verbally. If you have somebody that you can learn with, with like together, like a study partner, that is perfect. If you have somebody to do this together, then it's very easy, you just make sentences with the word. So for example, Going back to the "Tisch," —"the table," you know, it's "der Tisch." Okay. So you make simple sentences. Something like "der Tisch ist groß," "The table is big." Try to use other words that you already know. Don't worry, however, about the perfectness of the rest of the sentence, when you focus on learning a noun. So, if you focus on learning "der Tisch," then you focus on "der Tisch." However, what you do want to make sure, or in, in this case, maybe your study partner makes sure is, do you pronounce that word correctly? Do you use the correct article? Because this is how you're going to remember it. If you want to say something that is super complicated and you don't know how to say it yet in German, you can even use some English words. You could say, der beautiful Tisch is in my bedroom." I don't care. But of course try to use as much German as you already know. Good, and then. I suggest to you to make sure when you use this word in sentences to not just make one sentence, but maybe many sentences. I noted making sentences in German is probably not the easiest thing, but I'm telling you, this is exactly where you learn German. So you used the word in many sentences, this can be up to 10, until you feel good, you feel you will know this word and not just recognize the word when somebody says it to you, but also remember it, when you need it. And if a word has more than one meaning that you're learning, this is probably going to be more the case when you become a little bit more advanced, then you do the exact same thing with the next meaning of that word. However, make sure that when you make those sentences, you also use the plural forms, or the plural form. There's just one of it. And then I suggest you to do the same thing in writing. And if you do that, you will remember your words, and that is the trick. And if you think, "Oh my God, this is going to take me forever." Well, it's probably going to take you a while to first learn the first 100 words, and it's going to take you much less than they learn the next 200 words, and it's going to be super fast in comparison to, learn the next three hundred words and so on. So the more words you learn, the faster it's going to get. But you cannot speed it up by never learning the first hundred or whatever words. And what do you do when you come across a word and, even though you did that, what I just told you, and you still didn't remember, well fine, you just make a few more sentences with it. And make sure that you really got what it means, and you just do that until you do remember it. And that's the way how you will actually really retain the words. And I suggest to you to use that. When you start learning, focus on nouns. And I'm telling you, if you do just that, and what do you do when you, for example, read something and you come across a word that you don't know and you look it up in the dictionary, you do the exact same thing that are just told you. So this is not just applicable to learning words as a list, but any word and by the way, Um, it, this is not only applicable to nouns. I mean, okay, the singular plural article thing that is only for nouns. But the rest of the thing you can use with any kind of word, of course. And you should, by all means. You can actually, come quite far in learning German without doing anything else. Of course you will need other words. Actually the next episode or one of the next episodes that I'm going to make is actually on the different kinds of words or, in English called Parts of Speech. And of course you will need other ones too, because you cannot make a whole sentence sentence just with a noun, but it's a start and it's where you will usually start. It's by the way, also, if you observe children when they learn a language, the first thing they will learn is usually, a noun. Or, maybe not the very first one, but the first things they will focus on his learning nouns. If you want to learn more nouns, and many important basic nouns, and have like word lists with the articles and the translation, and basically a guided way of learning these, then as adjust to you to take a look at my homepage, bettergerman.info, particularly about the courses section. There is a new course that is starting now and you can still get it for the re— for the introductory price, and it's my totally beginner German online course. I will also link to it in the show notes. I'm very proud of how it is put together, and I can't wait for you to see it. And let me know what you need and what you think of it. So by the way, you can go there and you can also watch some of the videos, some of the content of the course, without having to buy the course. So you can look in there and see what you get and, and do that. So do that in any case. Good. So talk to you next week, and it was a pleasure for me to talk, to be able to talk to you. I'm very glad that you are here. I'm back home by the way, so I like my recording quality better now. I hope it wasn't too much of an inconvenience. I still wanted to give you some content while I was out of town, and, but I love that it's so much better now, and. It sounds so much better now, I think. Good. So talk to you next week. Bye bye.

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