Typical mistakes when learning German and how to avoid them – Part 1

Especially in German, a language with many grammatical rules and exceptions, mistakes are quite normal when learning German. But with the right tips and a little practice, you can easily overcome this learning challenge. So today we’ll tell you three typical mistakes that many German learners make at the beginning and show you how best to avoid them:

1. Uppercase vs. lowercase – the wrong spelling

The fixed uppercase and lowercase spelling often lead to mistakes when learning German. Fortunately, there are a few simple rules for capitalizing words to help you. In the following cases, the first letter in the word is always capitalized:

1. Beginning of a sentence
2. Names and nouns (= substantives)
3. Formal address with “Sie”
4. Verbs and adjectives that are used as nouns (= substantives). You can often recognize these cases of so-called substantivization by the article that precedes it (der, die, das).

For example: “Das Laufen ist anstrengend.“

Don’t forget: Apart from these rules, the remaining letters of a word and all other words are always written in lowercase. 😉

2. Classic when learning German: the wrong article

Using the correct articles can be difficult in German because there are three genders: der (masculine), die (feminine) and das (neutral). Especially when you start learning German, it often happens that incorrect articles are used, such as: “der Auto” instead of “das Auto” or “die Tisch” instead of “der Tisch”.

Our tip:

Always learn nouns together with the corresponding article in order to assign the gender correctly.

3. The wrong sentence structure

Incorrect sentences such as „Ich kann nicht bleiben, weil ich muss noch arbeiten.“ or „Ich in die Arbeit gehe.“ show how challenging correct sentence structure can be in German. Even if you make several mistakes in sentence structure when learning German at the beginning, the basics will quickly become clearer with a few simple rules:

In the main clause, the verb as a predicate always comes second: „Ich lerne Deutsch.“

In contrast, in a subordinate clause that begins with words like weil, dass or wenn, the verb comes at the end: „Ich lerne Deutsch, weil ich in Deutschland leben möchte.“

For example, if questions do not contain a question word like warum or wo, the verb comes first: „Lernst du Deutsch?“

Remember: There’s no reason to despair, because with a lot of practice, your German will continue to improve, and you’ll gain more confidence.

Stay up to date: In the second part, you will learn more about typical mistakes when learning German – and how you can avoid them in order to make faster progress. Look forward to helpful tips that will make your learning even more effective!