So, you've started learning German and it's going well. You even understand that there are three words for 'the', der, die and das. No problem you think, and you have learnt that the German word for cookie is 'der Keks'.

And then you find this video on youtube and you hear 'Ich esse den Keks'. So you ask your teacher why it says 'den' instead of 'der' and your teacher says:"It's the accusative case, because the cookie is the direct object."

Accusative? Direct object? What's that all about??...

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As I said in my last blog, there are 3 ways of saying 'the' (actually, there are lots more, but we ignore that for the time being!). Whether you need to say der, die or das depends on whether the word is masculine, feminine or neuter. 'How can a thing be masculine, feminine or neuter?' I can hear you ask.
Well, it's not the item, it's the word, for example, the table = der Tisch, that doesn't mean the table is masculine, it means the word for table is masculine.

So how do we know?
Are there rul...
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This is a question I hear a lot from children when I teach at schools. But often adults don't know either.
They know how to spell words and how to pronouce things but when asked what these words are they don't know.
When I teach German grammar it is important to know what nouns, verbs, adjectives are ......... or is it?

Well, you could learn German without grammar, but it will be a lot more difficult, as grammar will give you the necessary shortcuts.
It's a bit like driving a car. You can drive ...
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