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Better German Podcast with Susi

Susanne Schilk-Blümel
Since 09/2023 66 episodes

58 How to Use Describing Words Before Nouns in German

2026-02-26 21 min

Description & Show Notes

🎙️Better German Podcast – Episode 58
German Adjectives Made Simple with Practical Examples
 
In this episode, you learn how German adjectives change when they come before nouns — in a clear, beginner-friendly way. You’ll practice adjectives like big, beautiful, old, and small and see how they behave with the articles - “the” (der / die / das) and “a” (ein / eine), you’ll practice clear, practical examples so you can finally understand the pattern instead of memorizing tables. If adjective endings have ever felt confusing, this episode shows you that they’re actually very logical — and learnable.

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⬇️ Free PDF (Episode 58) (as soon as it it available)
 https://bettergerman.info/adjectives2.

🎧 Full Show Notes & Links
https://bettergerman.info/58

✨ Key Topics in This Episode
  • What adjectives are in German (groß, klein, schön, alt, nett)
  • Why adjectives change when they come before a noun
  • Adjectives after verbs vs before nouns ( The ball is big vs The big ball)
  • Adjectives with definite articles: der / die / das
  • The meaning of “the” vs “a” in German
  • Adjectives with “a” (ein / eine) 
  • How adjective endings change (-er / -e / -es) 
  • Clear spoken examples you can repeat and practice
  • How to practice without stressing about mistakes
🔗 Mentioned Links & Resources
Learn More about the Approach?

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Inside the Get Talking: German for Beginners & Restarters program, you practice German step by step with clear sentence structures, pronunciation drills, and real-life topics — so you don't just learn rules, you actually start speaking.

🎧 You May Also Like
  • Episode 1 – How German Sentences Work
  • Episode 5 – Beginner episode on articles (der / die / das)
  • Pronunciation and sentence-building practice episodes

🎧 Better German Podcast+ - Exclusive Podcast and Community
Early access exclusive PLUS content via your own private feed, all podcast resources in one place, ask questions and more. Free version is available if you just want to get started.
Free Placement with exam/questionnaire, personal program and interview to confirm placement and answer any questions. Courses are online, include materials and combine self study and live lessons. Pricing starts at €100/month, depending on your program. 👉 Take the placement exam: https://bettergerman.info/test

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✉️ Contact | podcast@bettergerman.info
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Transcript

Let's take "groß," that's "big." So we can say, "The big ball." " Der große Ball." So the form itself, the word itself is "groß," and I would say "Der Ball ist groß." But if I put it in front, I would say, "Der große Ball." If I want to say something like, "The big ball, is in the living room." " Der große Ball ist im Wohnzimmer." Welcome to the Better German podcast. I am Susi Blümel, a German teacher and founder of Better German. This podcast helps to learn German in a simple and clear way. With useful words, clear sentence structures, pronunciation, and real life topics from daily life and culture. You'll also get tips for learning German and understanding how the language actually works. And when you're ready, we have a free community and courses to support you even more. All right, so welcome to the Better German podcast. We are going to talk about adjectives and how adjectives change in German when you put them before nouns. Great. Now I'm going to record something that I thought I had already recorded. Okay, good. So just to be sure, an adjective is, of course a word, like in English, big, small, nice, ugly things like that. In German, that would be "groß, klein schön, hässlich," or beautiful is better translated as "schön" and nice is probably better translated as "nett." Good. So these are adjectives. If you've never heard about them, or you are not familiar with German adjectives at all, then I suggest you to go back to the episode —I'm not sure which number it is right now, but I am going to link it in the show notes. Go there and listen to that episode and, while we're at it, if you're completely new to the podcast and you're a beginner or, you haven't learned German a while, you want to get back into it, then I suggest you to go to the Episode 1 and start listening from there. I've built the episodes kind of like a little bit like a course, so you can follow one thing after the other, and many things build up on one another. I do try to make episodes, to be able to be heard standalone, but I think, that probably the best way of listening to it is from the beginning. Okay. Sometimes people, can get very confused about adjectives, and yes, it's true, they can change. However, I'm going to make it simple. This is the first, or this is kind of like the beginning of talking about how they're changing, and we're going to see how they change in two different situations. Let's jump in. Okay, so first of all, we're going to look if we are saying a sentence like, "The beautiful child is sleeping." The good news is I think you'll like that, we don't need a special tense like "is sleeping." So in, German we would actually say, "The beautiful child sleeps," and that's what we need and that's getting us far. We actually covered that word in one of the recent episodes and that would "schläft." So, "The beautiful child sleeps," for example. Or "The beautiful tree is outside." So let's look at that. The thing is basically very simple. So first of all, there is a free PDF to download because I think it is much easier if you can actually look at this. if you watch the video version, on YouTube, then you will see it. However, the video version always takes a little bit to come. I'm working on getting them there faster, but there is always a little bit of a, a lag between the, audio and the video, so hopefully by the time this episode is published, we will have caught up on this. But anyway, you can get it, so definitely go and download, the free PDF. I'm going to link it in the show notes, or you go to bettergerman.info/adjectives2. So adjectives1 in case you wonder is basically a list of adjectives but we didn't go into how they're changing. So if you want to put now, if you just say "der Baum." Okay, that's "the tree." And now you want to say, "The beautiful tree," you want to put that inside. So in this case, we just add an 'e' to any adjectives. "Der schöne Baum" is "The beautiful tree." Good, and if it's a female word, meaning a word with the article "die" in English again, there is no difference, "The beautiful woman." " Die schöne Frau." So the only thing that really changes is the article. The "schöne" doesn't change und (and), "The beautiful child," would be, " Das schöne Kind." So simple rule, if we have the "der", "die" or "das" these are called, by the way, definite articles and what's definite about them is that we know and we use them of course, which one we're talking about. So when I say, "the tree," that's same thing in English, like in German. When I say "The tree," I mean a specific tree. In German "der Baum." The only difference is that we are splitting up this "the" into three different categories. Why? I don't know, but that's the way it is, so we cannot just undo it, unfortunately, in German. But actually these are not that hard. It's just getting a little bit used to and, when you understand them, so that's the only thing. By the way, if this is new to you, don't worry about it. Sit there, try to understand it, and then you will see, and notice it when you hear things, when you read things, and you will go like, "Ah, that's why." But don't stress out about it. It will come to you in time. Good. Let's make a few more examples. So let's take another adjective, another thing that describes let's take "groß," that's "big." So we can say, "The big ball." " Der große Ball." So the form itself, the word itself is "groß," and I would say "Der Ball ist groß." But if I put it in front, I would say, "Der große Ball." If I want to say something like, "The big ball, is in the living room." " Der große Ball ist im Wohnzimmer." Okay. And when I say like, let's take a word "vase." I would say, "The vase is big," but I would say, "Die Vase ist groß." and if I put it in front, I would say, " Die große Vase." I could say something like "The big vase is beautiful." " Die große Vase ist schön." Good, very simple. And then, "The big book," I could say "the book is big," " das Buch ist groß" but I want to say, "The big book is interesting." " Das große Buch ist interessant." Good. So I suggest that you practice this a little bit and it's a very simple practice. You just take a few of the adjectives and just make a few examples, something like we just did. I'm going to say a few and you can repeat that. "The white table," "Der weiße Tisch." "The beautiful picture." "Das schöne Bild." "The old man." "Der alte Mann" So just sit down and write up a few. When you get the free PDF, you will have a few prompts to make examples like that. Good. Let's go to the next, and actually last subject of this episode. First let's look at the relationship between "the" and, "a" As we just covered, when I say "the", I mean a specific thing of whatever I'm talking about. If I say "der Tisch", I mean a specific "Tisch" —"table." So either we have just talked about it or we both know which one we are talking about probably, or we're standing right in front of it or I'm pointing at it, something like that. Then it makes sense to say "der Tisch ist groß." I'm saying this very specifically because depending on what your native language is, if your native language is English, you will probably not have a big problem grasping that. But there are languages that don't have articles at all, and they do what we go over here in a different way. So therefore, sometimes the concept of an article could be a little, harder to grasp. And even if your language, your native language is English, it is very possible that you've never thought about it, so I'm going to say it anyway. Good. Now if we say instead of " der Tisch," "ein Tisch," then I am talking about any table in that category or any word in that category, which is table in this case. So "ein Tisch" is like, it's not specified. I could say something like, "I need a table," and if I said "I need that table," we are talking about a specific one, and if I say "I need a table," I maybe not care or I am just not saying which one. Good, that's the difference. So I'm going to give you some examples. "Der Baum" is "The tree," or "The tree" is "der Baum," and "a tree" is "ein Baum" 'The woman," is "Die Frau," and "A woman" is " Eine Frau" "The child" is "das Kind" and "a child" is " ein Kind." That's actually something I'm not sure I've ever covered that in the podcast. I think I haven't. Anyway, it's actually just the introduction. Now let's look, if we add the adjectives, the word that describes, here. So there is a little bit more change here because so far we've only ever added an "e" and now we actually have three different forms. So if I say, "a beautiful tree," tree is "der," and this is something that we have to know now. So when we know it's "der Baum." "The tree" is "der Baum." Then we say, "ein" we just had that, "der Baum" is "ein Baum," becomes "ein Baum." So "the tree" is "der Baum." "A tree" is "ein Baum." And if the thing is male, because "der" is male, it is becoming "ein schöner Baum." That is, by the way, something that is kind of important and the rule the way, how you can think of, "Okay, how do I know which one of this is which?" "der" is ending with an R and the adjective actually gets an "er" ending, so " der schöne Baum" becomes "ein schöner Baum." Good. Now, how does it look with the woman? Good news. There is no real change between "ein" und (and) " die" in this case. So "die schöne Frau" " the beautiful woman" —"die schöne Frau” becomes " eine schöne Frau." okay. Then, " das schöne Kind," —"the beautiful child" Becomes " ein schönes Kind." And again, the "s" that we have in "das" is now in "schönes." That's kind of like something that can help you make the connection good. Let's do a few examples with the same word. Let's take "old,"— " alt" So "the old table" "der alte Tisch" " An," in this case we say "an" in English. "An old Table" "ein alter Tisch." Good. Then "The old woman." "die alte Frau." " An old woman." " eine alte Frau." Okay, I'm not going to say "ein alt das Kind" —"an old child" because that doesn't really make sense. So I'm going to say, "the old book." " das alte Buch" And, "an old book," —"ein altes Buch" So very simple "ein" "er", So ein schöner, ein alter. ein neuer, ein großer, ein kleiner. So we always add "er" when it's "der." We add "e" like we did on. "die" already. When it's, a female noun and then we add "es" "ein schönes Buch” “ein neues Kleid” “ein altes Auto" and so on. So that's basically what it is. Not a trick here. As I said, if you are listening to this for the first time, and this is the first time you hear that, and you're kind of beginner, what I would like you to do is do the, the exercises, sit down, make your own examples. You have to write your own examples, and then when you start wrapping your mind around it, then have to say your own examples. So really do it thoroughly, but at the same time, do not after that, expect to never make any mistakes or something like that. To really be able to do that when you're within a conversation properly, this is taking time. Give yourself the time. However, I still want you to try understand it now, because, then you will notice it and then you will get used to it. It's a big piece of things that maybe not have made any sense to you right now, and therefore you probably didn't even listen to them. But now when you, know what that is, you will start noticing it. And with that, over time, it will become easy to do. You'll have to practice it a couple of more times, but don't get worried about it, don't get stuck on it. Still sit down and do it and figure it out once and understand it, and then you can observe the pattern and that will eventually help you to apply it for the future. Okay, so I hope this was helpful for you. I was trying to not make it too long. There will be, first of all, there is a few things that I wanted to refer to. So there will be a course, I'm going to make a mini course. Now that, my Get Talking course has launched and we've just started the delivery, I'm going to make a little bit later in the year or soon-ish, a mini course. It's not a huge course, but a course with a few lessons where I'm going over these different changes that, adjectives make like this one, but also what happens when you say something like, "I see a beautiful car," or something like that, and a few others, So there is an adjectives mini course to go over all the major changes that adjectives do. I'm going to explain them like this, and you will have prompts to practice each and every one of them. So If you have signed up for my newsletter, then you will be notified once this is ready. I hope to see you there.

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