Do you need to make mistakes in order to sound like a real German? Kidding? Not really! Read why – certain – mistakes make you sound like a native speaker.

German language – difficult language, as the folk saying goes. It might not be true any longer because the German language is undergoing huge changes. One reason for this could be that even German native speakers sometimes have trouble with their mother tongue. This might not comfort you, but – it could. On the other hand, it might explain why some parts are so hard to learn – when even native speakers get them wrong.

So, then why should you learn it correctly? That is actually a good question. There is a simple answer to it. You might want to learn it correctly. And the second reason is that there is a difference between the correct written language and the spoken not so correct one.

Some books are dealing with these difficulties. Some years ago, Bastian Sick became quite famous for his articles (“Zwiebelfisch”) in SPIEGEL online on mistakes German native speakers make when speaking German. Eventually, he started travelling around Germany filling big concert-halls – usually not a topic which would attract big audiences. And he published three volumes of his book ‘Der Dativ ist dem Genitiv sein Tod’ (untranslatable, because simply wrong)

Now, I want to have a look at those mistakes German learners are also struggling with.

1) Prepositions in questions

2) V2- rule gets lost

3) declension

4) prepositions get lost

5) es hat – es gibt (mal hat’s Sonne…)

There is a general tendency to make the German language easier. All students of German are groaning about the difficult declension, the prepositions and so on.  It seems that also German native speakers sometimes find it too complicated. Especially young people try to find shortcuts cutting off articles and prepositions. One joke about this issue goes:

A: Ich gehe Aldi.

B: Zu Aldi.

A: Nein, Aldi ist noch nicht zu.

(A slightly different version you can find here as well as some other very funny battles with German prepositions:

http://www.spiegel.de/schulspiegel/zwiebelfibel-ich-geh-nach-aldi-a-398751.html)

I know, jokes can never be explained, however an explanation might be useful here. ‘Aldi’ is a discount supermarket, which means, in the first sentence we would need the preposition ‘zu’. That is exactly what the second speaker is trying to say. But A misunderstands the correction and replies that the supermarket is closed (‚zu’ translates either to the preposition ‚to’ or it means ‚closed’).

This tells us that also native speakers sometimes find the prepositions to hard to master, so they simply ignore them.

Das macht keinen Sinn.

That makes no sense.

What is the problem with this sentence? In English, it sounds absolutely correct. Exactly, it is a translation from English or ‘Denglish’. Now, it is accepted in the spoken language, but I won’t recommend to use it in a more formal way. Then it must be:

Das ergibt keinen Sinn.

Or: Ich sehe keinen Sinn darin.

Or: Das hat keinen Sinn.

Or ….

You see, there are many ways to say the same thing, so why do we need to borrow it from English? Because in the last years, it became very fancy to speak Denglish and – pretty bad German.

V2

What does that rule mean. It says that in a main clause the verb has to be always at the second position, for example:

Dann geht er nach Hause. (Then goes he (to) home.)

In the spoken language, this often gets blurred.

Hab’ ich doch gesagt. (No native speaker would say: Ich hab’ doch gesagt.)

The reason for this lies in the missing word ‘das’. Hence, the correct sentence would be: Das habe ich doch gesagt. Now the V2-rule is reestablished.

Declension

It seems as the genitive case is going to disappear.

Wegen des schlechten Wetters… there are only few people left using this once correct form. The Duden, the German bible for grammar issues, now accepts the dative case as well.

Wegen dem schlechten Wetter…

In some dialects, especially in the northern part of Germany, where still Plattdeutsch is spoken, often the accusative and the dative case get exchanged, when talking about a place.

Das Bett steht in den Schlafzimmer. (correct: in dem or im Schlafzimmer)