Learn how about German suffixes
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Intro |
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| Michael: What are some suffixes in German? |
| Igor: And why is it useful to know them? |
| Michael: At GermanPod101.com, we hear these questions often. Imagine the following situation: Ben Lee has a bad feeling about the last exam he took. He tells his sister Sasha Lee, |
| "I can only hope that I'll pass." |
| Ben Lee: Ich kann nur hoffen, dass ich bestehe. |
| Dialogue |
| Ben Lee: Ich kann nur hoffen, dass ich bestehe. |
| Sasha Lee: Die Hoffnung stirbt zuletzt. |
| Michael: Once more with the English translation. |
| Ben Lee: Ich kann nur hoffen, dass ich bestehe. |
| Michael: "I can only hope that I'll pass." |
| Sasha Lee: Die Hoffnung stirbt zuletzt. |
| Michael: "Hope dies last." |
Lesson focus |
| Michael: In German, words usually consist of a stem, a prefix and/or a suffix. In this lesson, we will have a closer look at suffixes, also called |
| Igor: Nachsilben |
| Michael: in German, literally meaning "after syllables." This is the part of the word that always follows the stem. The function of a |
| Igor: Suffix |
| Michael: is to expand a word stem into a completely new word. You may wonder exactly how it works. |
| [Recall 1] |
| Michael: Well, let's take a closer look at the dialogue to answer this question. |
| Do you remember how Ben Lee says "I can only hope that I'll pass?" |
| (pause 4 seconds) |
| Igor: Ich kann nur hoffen, dass ich bestehe. |
| Michael: Now, let's have a closer look at the verb, |
| Igor: hoffen |
| Michael: meaning "to hope." The stem of the word is |
| Igor: hoff |
| Michael: which without any context doesn't really mean anything. The ending |
| Igor: -en |
| Michael: has been added to the stem, making the word a verb. In the most cases, the suffix |
| Igor: -en |
| Michael: converts the word into an infinite verb. The suffix will also change if we conjugate the verb. So, for example for "I," the verb turns into |
| Igor: Ich hoffe |
| Michael: replacing the ending |
| Igor: -en |
| Michael: with just |
| Igor: -e |
| Michael: or, for "you," the verb changes into |
| Igor: Du hoffst |
| Michael: dropping the infinite ending, and adapting the ending |
| Igor: -st |
| Michael: or for "him/her and it" it would turn into |
| Igor: Er, Sie, Es hofft. |
| Michael: However, if we change the ending, the word will lose its status as a verb. |
| [Recall 2] |
| Michael: To see how it happens, let's take a look at our second sentence. |
| Do you remember how Sasha Lee says "Hope dies last?" |
| (pause 4 seconds) |
| Igor: Die Hoffnung stirbt zuletzt. |
| Michael: Did you hear, that, in this lesson, our stem |
| Igor: hoff |
| Michael: appears again, but, this time in a completely different form, and a slightly different meaning? While the ending |
| Igor: -en |
| Michael: turned the word into a verb, here the ending |
| Igor: -nung |
| Michael: is turning the word into the noun |
| Igor: die Hoffnung |
| Michael: meaning "hope." |
| Indeed, endings such as |
| Igor: -nung, -tum, -schaft, -heit, -ast, oder, -ling |
| Michael: are indicating that the word you hear is a noun. |
| Suffixes are very important to the German language, and learning about them will help you to master German faster. |
| So, we learned about verbs, and nouns, but there are many more suffixes that will help you to recognize which part of the speech the word is. For instance, you can easily recognize an adjective if a word is ending with |
| Igor: -lich |
| Michael: Let's take our stem |
| Igor: hoff |
| Michael: again, and add the suffix |
| Igor: -lich. |
| Michael: The result will be the adjective |
| Igor: hoffentlich |
| Michael: meaning "hopefully." |
| Or, if you see the ending |
| Igor: -chen, |
| Michael: such as in the word |
| Igor: Hündchen, |
| Michael: or "puppy," you can be sure that the word is a noun and a diminutive as well. |
| [Summary] |
| Michael: In this lesson, we learned that suffixes can morph a stem into many different words with slightly different meanings. Depending on the suffix, the stem can transform into either a noun, a verb, or an adjective. |
| Expansion/Contrast |
| Michael: When talking about suffixes in German, two additional characteristics need to be mentioned. |
| First, the endings for adjectives and some nouns change depending on the grammatical gender of the word. Let's start here with nouns. It's actually very easy to remember, if we're talking about professions, an additional ending, |
| Igor: -in |
| Michael: has to be added, if we are talking about a woman in this profession. So, if we take the German word for teacher, |
| Igor: Lehrer, |
| Michael: we can read from it that the teacher mentioned is a man. If we hear the word |
| Igor: Lehrerin, |
| Michael: we will know that someone is talking about a female teacher. |
| In the case of adjectives, all adjectives are changing depending on the gender of the following noun. |
| We have three different suffixes: |
| Igor: -er |
| Michael: if the following noun is masculine, |
| Igor: -e |
| Michael: if the following noun is feminine, and |
| Igor: -es |
| Michael: if the following noun is a neuter. Let's have a look at how the adjective |
| Igor: freundlich, |
| Michael: meaning "friendly," would change in combination with masculine, feminine, and neuter nouns. In |
| Igor: freundlicher Mann, |
| Michael: meaning "a friendly man," the noun "man" is masculine in German, so the ending is |
| Igor: -er |
| Michael: Next is |
| Igor: freundliche Frau, |
| Michael: meaning "a friendly woman." Here, the noun is "woman" and its gender is feminine, so the ending is |
| Igor: -e. |
| Michael: And, lastly, |
| Igor: freundliches Deutschland |
| Michael: meaning "friendly Germany." Since Germany is a neuter noun, the ending is |
| Igor: -es. |
| Michael: If you were listening carefully, you might notice one thing. We were talking before about adjectives often having the suffix |
| Igor: -lich |
| Michael: and in combination with the noun we added a second suffix to this word. That's because, in German, it's possible to have double suffixes, one attaching directly to the stem, creating a word, and the second attaching to this word, giving additional information about this word. |
| As we discussed, the second suffix can give information about the gender of either the noun itself, or the noun following an adjective. |
| Another piece of information that can be drawn from the second suffix is whether a noun is singular or plural. Let's take, for instance, the word |
| Igor: Schönheit |
| Michael: meaning "a beauty." Since it's ending with the suffix |
| Igor: -heit, |
| Michael: we can be sure it's singular. If we add the suffix |
| Igor: -en |
| Michael: to the noun, we will get the plural form |
| Igor: Schönheiten |
| Michael: meaning "beauties." |
Outro |
| Michael: Do you have any more questions? We're here to answer them! |
| Igor: Tschüsschen! |
| Michael: See you soon! |
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