SEF-LAN7305 - Beginning German

Course Description

This entry level course is geared toward those students who have not yet had any instruction in German. This is a lifesaver course for students planning a trip to a German speaking country with an emphasis on real life situations. There will be an emphasis on grammatical construction.

Course Outline

Greetings, Introductions and Useful Expressions
- Subject pronouns
- Present tense form of verbs
- Definite articles: der, die, das
- Gender and third-person pronouns
- Using adjectives and adverbs
- Present tense of sein and haben
- Verbs and vowel changes
Number: Measurements, Currencies, Sizes, and Temperature
- Rules about basic word order
- Formation of noun plurals
- Accusative case
- Indefinite articles
- Accusative of personal pronouns
- Prepositions requiring the accusative case
- Negation with nicht
- Function and use of adverbs
Food, Restaurants, and Eating
- Giving orders in a polite way
- Function of modals (modal auxiliaries)
- Möchten means "Would like"
- Ordinal numbers
- Asking indirect questions
- Conjugation of wissen (to know)
- More about word order
- Compound nouns
Lodging, Hotels, and Overnight Accommodations
- Dative case
- Dative endings for a few masculine nouns in singular
- Dative endings for plural nouns
- Dative prepositions
- Verbs that require the dative case
- Separable-prefix Verbs
- Word order of direct and indirect objects
- Two-say prepositions
Telling Time
- Regular (weak) verbs
- Irregular (strong) verbs
- Separable-Prefix verbs
- Irregular Verbs using haben as auxiliary
- Regular verbs using sein as auxiliary
- Irregular verbs using sein as auxiliary
- Mixed verbs
- Genitive case

Learner Outcomes

Communicate on a basic level in the target language
Greet people and make introductions
Understand currency, size, temperature and measurements
Order in a restaurant
Deal with accommodations
Ask for directions
Tell time

Notes

Book required

Please be sure to have an updated email address as that is the main form of communication outside the classroom

Evaluation: participation, demonstration of skills