As an intermediate learner, you need to describe things more precisely. Instead of saying: “That is the colleague. He speaks five languages,”<\/i> you want to say: “That is the colleague who<\/b> speaks five languages.”<\/i> This is a Relativsatz<\/b>.<\/p>\n
For an expat, this is vital for:<\/p>\n
Relative clauses are subordinate clauses<\/b>. This means two things:<\/p>\n The “relative pronoun” (who\/which\/that) usually looks exactly like the definite articles (der, die, das).<\/p>\n Use this when the person or thing you are describing is the subject<\/b> of the second part of the sentence.<\/p>\n Use this when the person or thing you are describing is the object<\/b> of the action in the relative clause. Only the masculine der<\/i> changes to den<\/i>.<\/p>\n This is where your German starts to sound truly high-level. You can put a preposition before the relative pronoun.<\/p>\n A. Combine the two sentences into one using a relative clause (Nominative):<\/b><\/p>\n B. Translate to German (Watch the verb position!):<\/b><\/p>\n [ ] I know that relative pronouns usually match the definite articles (der, die, das). Excellent! Now that you can describe who<\/i> is doing what<\/i>, let’s learn how to focus on the action itself. In Lesson 18: Das Passiv (The Passive Voice)<\/b>, we will learn how to say things like “The application is being processed” or “The car is being repaired”\u2014essential for official business in Germany.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Adding Detail: Relativs\u00e4tze (Relative Clauses) As an intermediate learner, you need to describe things more precisely. Instead of saying: “That is the colleague. He speaks five languages,” you want to say: “That is the colleague who speaks five languages.” This is a Relativsatz. For an expat, this is vital for: At work: “The project that …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":162,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-learn-german-b1"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shr7k.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shr7k.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shr7k.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shr7k.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shr7k.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/shr7k.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":163,"href":"https:\/\/shr7k.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159\/revisions\/163"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shr7k.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shr7k.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shr7k.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shr7k.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
2. Relative Clauses in the Nominative (The Subject)<\/h2>\n
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\n \nGender<\/th>\n Example<\/th>\n Meaning<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n \n Masculine<\/b><\/td>\n Das ist der Mann, der<\/b> hier arbeitet<\/b>.<\/td>\n That is the man who works here.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Feminine<\/b><\/td>\n Das ist die Frau, die<\/b> Deutsch lernt<\/b>.<\/td>\n That is the woman who learns German.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Neuter<\/b><\/td>\n Das ist das Kind, das<\/b> dort spielt<\/b>.<\/td>\n That is the child who plays there.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n 3. Relative Clauses in the Akkusativ (The Object)<\/h2>\n
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4. Pro Tip: Relative Clauses with Prepositions<\/h2>\n
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5. Practice Exercises<\/h2>\n
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Lesson Summary Checklist<\/h2>\n
\n[ ] I remember to put a comma before the relative clause.
\n[ ] I always kick the conjugated verb to the end of the relative clause.
\n[ ] I can identify the difference between a Nominative and Akkusativ relative clause.<\/p>\nWhat’s Next? Lesson 18<\/h3>\n