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

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.

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 hard to master, so they simply ignore them.

2) Bad translations which entered the German language

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. 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.

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 use English words, a kind of Denglish, how it is called in German. In this case, the literal translation is the problem. And it makes no sense, because there is a way to say it in German.

3) V2- rule gets lost

What does that rule mean? It means 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. Instead of: Then he goes 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.

4) Declension

The German declension of articles and adjectives is one of the parts students are struggling with a lot. Even my boss who speaks very well, but German is not her native language admits that this part of the German language sometimes does not appear logically to her. Remember that first of all the declension depends on the gender of a word, so if you don’t know the gender you got the first problem. Secondly, there are three kinds of declension, the one with the definite article, the second one with the indefinite article and the last one without any article, e.g.

Ich brauche das Buch.

Ich brauche ein Buch.

*Ich brauche Buch. (Which obviously is wrong, but I have heard that from people speaking very well.)

On the other hand, we got:

Ich brauche das Wasser.

*Ich brauche ein Wasser. (wrong) But: Ich nehme ein Wasser. (colloquially used)

Ich brauche Wasser.

So, what is the difference of both? Books are countable, water is not. Additionally, you can also see that is depends on the context. E.g. when ordering to say ‘Ich nehme ein Wasser’ means actually a glas of water, the glas is just omitted, while ‘Ich brauche ein Wasser’ sounds strange, because it is not the glas you need.

5) Cases are disappearing

There are ongoing chances, as it may happen to all languages. It seems that 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. The fun fact is that this is a typical mistake of a person learning German.

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

We could go on and on. The important thing about German being considered a difficult language to learn is the misconception about it. I have seen that in my teaching experience hundreds of times. Sometimes even before trying to understand and learn a certain structure, I hear: German is a difficult l… and I try immediately to interrupt that way of thinking. Am I a bit impolite? Maybe. My intention is not to let this way of thinking get to the brain. When learning, absorbing new information, our brain is not able to distinguish between useful and less useful information. If we give our brain the information that German is difficult to learn, it will simply absorb it and make it harder for us to learn it. That is what we call self-fulfilling prophecy. So just don’t get overwhelmed from this idea of a difficult language and try. Trying and sometimes failing. As Roosevelt said: It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed. In German, we have the saying: Aus Fehlern lernt man.