Können Sie mir helfen? German Grammar Questions!?

Question

I've almost completed my German Coursework which has to be handed in to be remarked in two days time, my only problem is that Im completely stuck on two tricky questions. Can anyone help me understand them?

The questions are:

Explain how the German verb is made up and how you conjugate it.

What is a connector (preposition)? Give an example

If anyone can help me on this I'd really appreciate it!

Thanks,

Megan

Answer 1

Okay so i'm going to try my best. I've been taking german for six years, and I still sometimes get confused, so I know how you feel.

1.) The german verb. The whole verb is called the infinitive ex.) kochen (to cook) It can be conjugated depending on who or what the subject is.

Ich ( I ) - add e

Du (you) - add st

Er, Sie, Es, Man (he, she, it, one) - add t

Wir (we) -just leave as infinitive

Ihr (you guys)- add t

Sie (you formal/informal) - leave as infinitive

so for the verb kochen, it would look like this

ich - koche

du- kochst

er/sie/es/man- kocht

wir- kochen

ihr- kocht

sie- kochen

*this conjugation only applies to regular verbs. You have to memorize the changes for irregular ones.

2.) A preposition connects sentences together. There are two kinds of prepositions. Dative and Accusative. The accusative ones are durch, fuer, gegen, ohne, um. The dative ones are aus, ausser, bei, mit, nach, seit, von, zu. There are also a couple of prepositions that can be used as both, but I don't want to confuse you even more.