So you’ve decided to study German. It´s an interesting language that can give you more opportunities in life. It can also expand your view of the world.
German I
Phonology (sounds): The sore throat is normal. This is because German has sounds that English does not, like the r in rot, the ch in brauchen and the ch in Ich. The ch in Ich sounds like a hissing cat. The ch in brauchen sounds like the ch in loch. German also has a vowel sound that English does not have represented by the letter ü. The sound is created by positioning your lips like you’re going to whistle, then saying an e sound.
Grammatical Gender: German has three: masculine, feminine and neuter. There aren’t really hard rules as to which gender gets attached to a word but there are some trends. Most nouns that end in e are feminine with the exceptions of Affe, Käse and Auge. Most loanwords (not cognates) are neuter except Computer which uses der.
German II
The Past Tense(s): German has two past tenses: one for writing and one for speaking. The spoken past tense is learned in German II and written in German IV. The spoken past tense uses a system of prefixes and suffixes as well as the distinction between weak and strong verbs. The written past tense uses different words.
Really Long Words: The longest official word in German is Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz, but the words being learned won’t be so long. German can make such long words since it puts a lot of nouns together without spaces.
German III
Dative Case: The dative case uses dem, der, dem instead of der, die, das. German also has more flexible word order than English so the articles are used instead. German also marks the dative with n’s at the ends of words sometimes.
Prepositions: German has three types of prepositions: accusative, dative and wechsel. Wechsel prepositions change between accusative and dative depending on whether the subject of the sentence is going somewhere or is already someplace.
Grammar isn’t as intimidating as it seems, since it is learned bit by bit. You´ll get it eventually if you just keep practicing.