Why is German Difficult? the ARTICLES from hell...that's why.

My German Class Girlies (Elahe is my bestie in the class)

Many other languages have masculine and feminine articles. German has three: der (m), die (f) and das (n)...they added a neutral in there to spice things up a bit.

Not only must you memorize each noun with its appropriate article, but you also must memorize the 8 billion rules that go with them depending on the noun's grammatical case in the sentence. Meaning...it changes depending on where it is in the sentence...whether it is the subject of the verb, the subject of a preposition or just chilling out in the nominative case. Each one of these means a mutated form of the original der, die or das. (And die is not pronounced like 'die' like I know you are reading it...it's pronounced 'dee'...and 'der' is 'dair', k?)

So...everytime my teacher introduces a new rule and different forms of the articles I get a little peesed. Can't you just use 'the' and 'a' with the occasional 'an' and call it a day? Our class is over next week and we haven't even learned all the cases. I'm signing up for the Level 2 class as soon as I can. I am no where NEAR fluent. I can finish a worksheet (that's usually just repetition of the same subect) in no time, but speaking is a whole 'nother story. So is writing. So is understanding the dialect...I have no hope there. Have I mentioned that sometimes they use one way in writing and another in speaking? All past tense is different when written than when spoken. You Deutsch $#$@!

Today I went in to do my Lebenslauf (resume) with the lady from the government job place. Umm...she barely knew how to use the computer. I took the keyboard from her and started typing it out myself at one point. She was actually glad not to have to peck it out herself. You MUST have a photo on your resume (naturally, so they can judge you based on how you look), your date of birth, nationality and sometimes religion. Oh, and you put down every school you went to since Kindergarten. I was doing math on a scratch sheet of paper for the years. They are not joking.

Not that you care (because I sure wouldn't if I still lived in the Land o' English Bliss), but I'm just gonna show you some examples. "Zum Beispiel" if you will.

"the"	Masculine	Neuter	Feminine	Plural
Nominative	der	das	die	die
Accusative	den	das	die	die
Dative	dem	dem	der	den
Genitive	des	des	der	der

Nominative: Der Apfel ist grün. (The apple is green.)

Accusative: Ich esse den Apfel. (I eat the apple.)

Dative: Ich gehe zur Schule mit dem Apfel. (I go to school with the apple.)

Genitive: Die Samen des Apfels sind braun. (The apple's seeds are brown.)

(Nouns are always capitalized)

Possessive pronouns also change depending on the noun's gender and case...and so do the damn adjectives!

Once I master these (I have my doubts), well, probably by then it will be time to move.

P.S. I gotta stop taking Elsie out in the streets because I'm stopped every 5 minutes with oohing and ahhing women (and men!) "Mein Gott! Sie ist sehr süß! Wie alt ist sie?" and I can't take anymore non-fresh Deutsch breath.