German Grammar with Rules and Interactive Exercises

Get to grips with German grammar

Like it or not, grammar is an essential (and unavoidable!) part of learning a language: it gives you the building blocks to express yourself confidently and accurately in your target language.

Our grammar section covers all major topics and includes plenty of examples, and—most importantly—plenty of interactive exercises where you can practise every grammar point in detail.

Click on a topic to get started!

Tenses

In the German language there are six tenses: present (Präsens), present perfect (Perfekt), simple past or preterite (Präteritum), past perfect (Plusquamperfekt), future (Futur I), and future perfect (Futur II). In each tense, the verbs have to be conjugated (ich, du, er, ... – I, you, he, ...).

Verbs

Here you can find information about modal verbs, reflexive verbs, separable and inseparable verbs, the passive voice, the imperative, and the subjunctive. The different tenses are explained in the section called "Tenses".

Verb Conjugator

Conjugate any German verb in any tense with Lingolia’s verb conjugator. Simply enter the infinitive of the verb and let us do the hard work for you!

Nouns and Articles

In German, nouns can be masculine, feminine, or neuter (for example der Löffel, die Gabel, das Messer – the spoon, the fork, the knife). They are generally used with an article and have to be declined.

Pronouns

Pronouns take the place of nouns and have to be declined. We make a distinction between personal, possessive, reflexive, interrogative, demonstrative, and indefinite pronouns.

Adjectives

Adjectives are descriptive words. They indicate how someone or something is (for example gut, schnell – good, fast). Adjectives can be comparative, and sometimes we have to decline them too.

Declension

German has four cases (nominative, accusative, dative, genitive). They make us change the endings of certain words depending on their role in the sentence. This is called declension.

Adverbs

Adverbs are unchanging words (for example hier, gestern, darum, sehr – here, yesterday, therefore, very), which we use to provide information about place, time, reason, or manner. Some adverbs can be comparative.

Prepositions

Prepositions are short words (for example in, auf, ohne – in, on, without) that we use with nouns or pronouns. Each preposition requires a particular case (genitive, dative, accusative).

Sentence Structure

In this part of the site, we explain the order of words in main clauses, questions, and dependent clauses. We pay special attention to the areas of conditional clauses and indirect speech.