My Family & Friends: Grammar & Phonics (AQA GCSE German): Revision Note

To talk about your family and friends, you need to know some important grammar – subject pronouns, possessive adjectives and the indefinite articles. Let's look at these grammar points in more detail.

Subject pronouns

Mein Freund heißt Tobias. Er ist sehr nett.

• Subject pronouns replace the noun in a sentence

• They are useful when talking about others so that we don't need to keep repeating their name(s)

• In the sentence above, er replaces 'Tobias'

• Subject pronouns can be singular (one person) or plural (more than one person)

• There are three German words for 'you':

  • du is used for one person informally, e.g. a friend or family member

  • Sie is used formally, e.g. for a teacher or stranger

  • Ihr is used for more than one person informally

• Use sie (lowercase) to mean 'she' or 'they', and Sie (uppercase) to mean the formal 'you' - context will make the meaning clear

Possessive adjectives

Meine Schwester heißt Lena und mein Bruder heißt Max. Meine Katzen heißen Peter und Paul.

• Possessive adjectives show who something belongs to, e.g. 'my', 'their'

• In German, possessive adjectives change their ending depending on the gender and number of the noun that follows

• The possessive adjective depends on the gender of the noun, not the gender of the owner, e.g. mein Vater, meine Mutter, mein Kind

• The endings in the table below apply when the possessive adjective is the subject of the sentence (nominative) - in other words, when it refers to the person or thing doing the verb, e.g. mein Bruder ist nett (my brother is kind). Here, mein Bruder is the subject

• When the possessive adjective is used with haben (to have), the endings change slightly - you'll see this in the section below

Possessive adjectives - nominative case only

Indefinite articles

Ich habe einen Bruder und eine Schwester. Wir haben ein Tier.

• Indefinite articles are the words for 'a' or 'an' in German - ein, eine, ein

• They are particularly useful in this topic because you will often want to say what family members you have, e.g. ich habe einen Bruder (I have a brother)

• In German, the indefinite article changes depending on the gender of the noun and the role it plays in the sentence

• When using haben (to have), the noun that follows is the object of the sentence - this is called the accusative case

• This means the indefinite article changes depending on the gender of the noun:

• Notice that only the masculine form changes - feminine and neuter stay the same

• You can also add an adjective before the noun to make your German more impressive

• The adjective ending changes depending on the gender of the noun - the general rule in the accusative is:

  • masculine: adjective + -en

  • feminine: adjective + -e

  • neuter: adjective + -es

My family & friends: phonics

• ei is always pronounced like the English word 'eye'
  mein
  kein
  Einzelkind

• ie is always pronounced like the English sound 'ee'
  sie
  Mitglied

• sch is pronounced like the English sound 'sh'
  Schwester
  Geschwister