Core German vocabulary: the first words that carry every conversation

German greetings follow the time of day and how well you know someone. Guten Tag is safe with anyone; Hallo is for friends and shops with a relaxed feel. Tap any line to hear it. For general methods that work in any language, see our guide to building vocabulary.

A pronoun is a word that stands in for a noun: I, you, she. German has two words for “you”: du for friends, family and children, Sie (always with a capital S) for everyone else. Every German noun also has a gender, a grammar class shown by its article: der (masculine), die (feminine) or das (neuter). It is part of the word, so learn them together; see der, die, das.

A verb is an action or state word: go, have, be. The infinitive is the dictionary form, which in German ends in -en or -n. The verb changes its ending for each person (ich gehe, er geht); the ich and er forms below are the two you need first. The full pattern is in the present tense, and können and müssen in modal verbs.

Almost every German question word starts with w, said like English “v”. The question word comes first and the verb second, as in English “Where is …?”. For yes/no questions the verb comes first; see word order.

Time words often open a German sentence, which pushes the subject after the verb: Heute habe ich Zeit, “today have I time”. That is normal and correct German. Clock times and dates are in German numbers.

A connector joins two ideas: and, but, or, because. Und, aber, oder and denn leave the word order alone, so they are the easiest to use first; weil and dass send the verb to the end (see subordinate clauses). German has two words for “not”: nicht for verbs and descriptions, kein for nouns that would take ein or no article.