Sentence structures not acquired yet

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german2k01
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Sentence structures not acquired yet

Postby german2k01 » Mon Jun 13, 2022 7:09 am

Yesterday I was having a conversation with a German lady. I noticed that my subconscious mind had acquired certain grammar structures and could express them effortlessly. However, certain structures seem to me they have not been acquired as yet.
For example, I am still not sure how to express thought involving structures like "getting used to" "used to be" in German esp involving different subject pronouns.

My query is, how do you tackle such issues? Do you write thoughts in Engish with those structures and use a translation tool and memorize them in Anki? I am saying this based on my hunch but I am not 100% sure.
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Re: Sentence structures not acquired yet

Postby luke » Mon Jun 13, 2022 10:33 am

german2k01 wrote:For example, I am still not sure how to express thought involving structures like "getting used to" "used to be" in German esp involving different subject pronouns.

I've been thinking about this too. If I wanted to ''activate" these two structures, I'd be thinking:

"getting used to" = becoming accustomed to
"used to be" = imperfect past tense

For the imperfect past tense, I would want to know how German conceptualizes and uses it. Is it similar to English?

I would search my study materials and see if these two topics were covered in detail anywhere.

Then I would study them more carefully and try to begin forming my own sentences based on simple examples in the study material.
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Re: Sentence structures not acquired yet

Postby Le Baron » Mon Jun 13, 2022 11:21 am

german2k01 wrote:For example, I am still not sure how to express thought involving structures like "getting used to" "used to be" in German esp involving different subject pronouns.

Well in both German and Dutch "used to be" is rendered in a simpler way as: "was" (English). Or: war früher/was vroeger. 'Was previously/earlier/formerly'. This is pretty much invariable. With simple word additions like e.g. immer for: "I always used to be happy" = Ich war früher immer glücklich...
"Getting used to.." is a bit trickier because it uses daran (in Dutch it's er and the verb is separable). German's gewöhnen is pretty much 'being at home with' and you can see that in the word. So keep it in mind to remind yourself of the word and to trigger the chain of remembering. It's also again pretty much invariable, so whether you say "I can't get used to it", or "he can't get used to it", or "we" or "they" it's still 'daran gewöhnen' and only the reflexive pronoun alters: mich, sich, uns.
german2k01 wrote:My query is, how do you tackle such issues? Do you write thoughts in English with those structures and use a translation tool and memorize them in Anki? I am saying this based on my hunch but I am not 100% sure.

Keep the structures as simple as possible and as few as possible so that you are likely to remember them, and use them over and over again in conversation. Wait for or prompt the person to offer you the correct sentence structure and then repeat it immediately. I don't know about memorising them with Anki, but I do check translations for things in Google/DeepL and of course consulting the dictionary which commonly offers the set phrases. However, remembering is best from usage. Your brain rubber stamps it when you say something and someone understands and you'll repeat that.
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Re: Sentence structures not acquired yet

Postby german2k01 » Mon Jun 13, 2022 12:16 pm

That was an extremely good explanation. Now I see the structure I think I can look for a pattern while reading.

May I know how did you learn about it? Under which grammatical point did you study it? I am asking if I can locate this under Hammer's German grammar book and see more examples.

In English grammar books, they are used to express habitual habits. It is usually covered in the English grammar book.
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Re: Sentence structures not acquired yet

Postby Le Baron » Mon Jun 13, 2022 1:11 pm

I can honestly say that I don't remember learning it! Sometimes it would have been just looking something up out of necessity or it was something deliberately covered in a course. I also tend to use dictionaries more than grammar texts.

In any case with things like this I'm willing to spend an entire day on such a fixed type of sentence to investigate it and build a memory of it. E.g. a structure like: 'I know how to...' = Ich weiß wie... (do something, find something, achieve something etc).

With something like "I know how that works" you could soon get into a tangle, according to what you exactly want to say. It might be a general: I know how that is/goes = Ich weiß wie das geht, or specifically: I am familiar with.. = Wie es funktioniert ist mir bekannt.. or Ich weiß, wie man das macht = I know how one does that. But what I want is to get a taste of the common basic phraseology. So I'll confirm all this with the dictionary and then boil it down into a mere handful of more common structures - maybe just even two - which I know I'm not going to bugger up on account of them being too complicated. Then I'll go and try to use these in real situations.

So e.g. in the beginning with e.g. Dutch I was more likely to employ 'I know (of) it' rather than 'I am familiar with it' at the risk of tangling myself up in the hope of appearing more learned. It backfires when it fails and you could have just used the simpler sentence with the same meaning and succeeded. It's not worth it. Once the simple and effective sentences are second nature moving onto more sophisticated structures is easier. This is how I see it anyway.
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Re: Sentence structures not acquired yet

Postby german2k01 » Mon Jun 13, 2022 1:41 pm

That makes sense. Simplicity is the name of the game. Your fluency suffers in the process if you try to sound learned. Completely my experience.
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Re: Sentence structures not acquired yet

Postby jeff_lindqvist » Mon Jun 13, 2022 2:01 pm

Le Baron has presented good examples.

Dict.cc used to be (!) a good resource when I was working on my German many years ago.

Have a look at their examples:
https://www.dict.cc/?s=%22getting+used+to%22 / https://www.dict.cc/?s=getting+used+to
https://www.dict.cc/?s=%22get+used+to%22 / https://www.dict.cc/?s=get+used+to
https://www.dict.cc/?s=%22used+to+be%22
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Re: Sentence structures not acquired yet

Postby Caromarlyse » Mon Jun 13, 2022 2:25 pm

german2k01 wrote:That was an extremely good explanation. Now I see the structure I think I can look for a pattern while reading.

May I know how did you learn about it? Under which grammatical point did you study it? I am asking if I can locate this under Hammer's German grammar book and see more examples.

In English grammar books, they are used to express habitual habits. It is usually covered in the English grammar book.


In my version of Hammer's (admittedly an old edition), if you look up "used" in the English word index, you get referred to sections 6.5.2 and 6.6.1 and get a bit of detail on "used to" in the "accustomed to" sense. Nothing as far as I can see on expressing habitual actions, though, and like Le Baron I don't remember how I learnt. If you look in the use of tenses chapter in the edition you have (if it exists!), you might find something, but my edition doesn't give any example of the "ich war frueher..." etc form in use.
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Re: Sentence structures not acquired yet

Postby german2k01 » Mon Jun 13, 2022 2:47 pm

I bought a used copy on Amazon. It is Third Edition. I found your relevant information under the same numbered so I guess it is the same edition. Let me read it. Thanks
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Re: Sentence structures not acquired yet

Postby german2k01 » Mon Jun 13, 2022 2:52 pm


Dict.cc used to be (!) a good resource when I was working on my German many years ago.


That is a useful resource as it contains many example sentences. Thanks
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