Social Media: Grammar & Phonics (AQA GCSE German): Revision Note

• To talk about social media, you need to know how to give reasons, evaluate advantages and disadvantages, and refer back to ideas precisely

• Let's look at three grammar points that will help you do this

Weil + verb to end

• Weil means 'because'

• It is a very useful conjunction for giving reasons and opinions about social media

• In German, weil is a subordinating conjunction - this means it sends the verb to the end of the clause

Main clause + weil + … + verb at the end

• When there are two verbs in the weil clause (for example a modal verb + infinitive), the modal verb goes to the end and the infinitive sits just before it

  • Ich benutze es oft, weil man schnell Nachrichten schicken kann.
    I use it often because you can send messages quickly.

  • Es ist wichtig, weil man online vorsichtig sein muss.
    It is important because you have to be careful online.

Infinitive constructions with zu

Higher tier only

This grammar is only required for Higher tier.

• This structure is used to make general statements about whether something is easy, difficult, good, dangerous, and so on

• It is particularly useful for discussing the advantages and disadvantages of social media

Es ist + adjective + zu + infinitive (at the end)

• The zu always comes directly before the infinitive

• The infinitive always goes to the end of the sentence

Social media: phonics

• In English, the ending -tion is pronounced -shun (as in 'communication' or 'generation')

• In German, the same ending is pronounced -tsion - the t is always clearly sounded, making a ts sound, followed by -ion

• Although many German words that end in -tion look identical or very similar to their English equivalents, they are pronounced differently

  • Kommunikation

  • Information

  • Generation