1. A short language comparison
English vs. German
A short language comparison

2. Some basic information about the languages
English and German are two Germanic languages and therefore share many of the same characteristics
English and German belong to the “West Germanic” group of the Indo-European language family
English developed from the “Low German”
Modern High German developed from the “High German”

3. Language Tree

4. German
Deutsch  official language of Germany, Austria, and Switzerland
around the world, German is spoken by approximately 95 to 110 million native speakers and another 20 million non-native speakers
English
the official language of Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom
the standard language of the United States
spoken by 370 million people as first language (estimated), circa 3 billion total

5. The sounds in both languages
both the English and the German alphabet consist of 26 letters, using the Latin alphabet
however, more phonetic symbols are used in transcription of German words
sometimes, same sounds are pronounced in a different way

6. Phonetic symbols

9. The "th" sound (all positions)
English
Old English
German
think
þencean
denken
three
þrīe
drei
this
þis
dies
thou (you sing.) þū du
leather
leðer
Leder
path
pæð
Pfad

10. /x/ before /t/ English Old English German brought brōht gebracht
thought
þōht
gedacht

11. [ts] and [ç] English: sits /sɪts/, sets /sets/, cats /kæts/
German: zu /tsu:/, zehn /tse:n/, Zunge /tsʊŋə/, Zimmer /tsɪmɐ/
German: [ç] like in ich, Milch, Pech

12. Additional characteristics in German
German umlaute: Ä ä, Ö ö, Ü ü
[y] Fülle
[y:] Rübe, Tür
sounds doesn’t exist in
[ɛ ] mästen English
[ɛ:] wählen
[ø] Ökonom
[ø:] Öl

13. Eszett: - ß (also called “sharp s”)
- rules where “ß” can be replaced with “ss”
Example: Fuß (foot), Füße (feet)

14. Inflectional system
inflection: change of form or modification that words undergo to make distinctions such as case, gender, number, tense, person, mood, or voice

15. Gender of words
Grammatical gender is not very important in English  nouns in English have lost their gender (except for certain professions)
All German nouns are either masculine, feminine, or neuter
The gender of the German noun is often indicated by the article (definite or indefinite)

16. Definite article and gender
masculine
feminine
neuter
der Mann
(the man)
die Frau
(the woman)
das Kind
(the child)
der Ball
(the ball)
die Tasche
(the bag)
das Haus
(the house)
der Baum
(the tree)
die Lampe
(the lamp)
das Jahr
(the year)

17. - der Student (masculine)
- die Studentin (feminine)
- der Lehrer (masculine)
teacher
- die Lehrerin (feminine)

18. Cases of nouns
In German, words (usually nouns) can have a variety of forms depending on its function in the sentence  case
The four cases in German:
the subject or nominative case
the direct object or accusative case
the indirect object or dative case
the possessive or genitive case

19. The nominative case is used in reference to the subject of a sentence.
Der Mann / Die Frau / Das Kind isst.
(The man / the woman / the child is eating.)
The accusative case is used in reference to the direct object of a sentence.
Ich sehe den Mann / die Frau / das Kind.
(I see the man / the woman / the child.)
The dative case is used in reference to the indirect object of a sentence.
Er gibt dem Mann / der Frau / dem Kind den Löffel.
(He gives the spoon to the man / the woman / the child.)
The genitive case is used in reference to a possessed object of a sentence.
das Buch des Mannes / der Frau / des Kindes
(the man's / woman's / child's book)

20. Present tense of verbs Personal Pronoun German English ich/I spiele
play
du/you
spielst
er, sie, es/he, she, it
spielt
plays
wir/we
spielen
ihr/you
sie/they

21. False Friends Meaning in English Meaning in German GIFT a present
poison
KIND
nice, generous
a child
ROCK
a stone
a skirt
BOOT
a tall shoe
boat
BAD
evil, harmful
bath
HANDY
easy to handle
cell phone