German
German from the sounds upward, with the syllabus fixed from outside: what belongs at A1 is what the Goethe-Institut's own examination inventory lists, neither more nor less, so that finishing the level means having met exactly what Start Deutsch 1 examines. The rules are numbered continuously and give the reason for a form rather than asserting it, and each is drilled before anything is built on it.
A1
Sounds, Spelling, and the Capital Letter
—The four letters German writes beyond the Latin twenty-six, the three diphthongs, what the spelling says about vowel length, the consonants that do not sound as an English reader expects, and the capital letter that marks every noun.
Nouns I — Gender
—The three genders a German noun can belong to, the article that shows which, the classes of meaning and the endings that predict it, and the one article the plural takes whatever the gender.
Nouns II — The Plural
—The seven formations a German plural is built with, the Umlaut that accompanies three of them, the endings that never take it, and the reason a noun is cited with its plural rather than derived from a rule.
The Article, and the Article That Is Not There
—Where German puts a definite article that English leaves out, which country names carry one, the forms and work of ein, and the contexts in which a German noun stands with no article at all.
The Present Tense, and Verb-Second
—The one present tense German has where English has two, the six endings it is built with, the three spellings that bend them, the verbs that move their stem vowel instead, the two ways of addressing a person, and the rule that puts the verb second whatever stands first.
CheckpointCheckpoint: Sounds, Gender, the Plural, the Article, and the Present
—A cumulative examination of everything taught so far. Its questions are not the drills over again: each combines the rules of two sections or more, so that a sound is tested through the plural that changes it, a plural through the verb that agrees with it, and an article through the case its verb assigns. Forty-nine questions in all five examination formats, two of them reading passages.
Sit the checkpoint49 questions · 196 marks · covers 5 sectionsQuestions
—How a German question is built: the question word first and the finite verb second, the interrogative phrase that counts as one element, wer and was against wo, wann, warum and wie, wie viel against wie viele, the question word that is its own subject, the yes/no question that opens with its verb, and what each kind is answered by.
The Accusative
—The case of the direct object: den and einen and keinen in the masculine singular, the nouns that take -en with them, the accusative of every personal pronoun, wen against wer, uns and euch and sich for one another, the pronouns that take no ending against welch- which does, and the three verbs that take no accusative at all.
Negation
—How a German sentence is denied: nicht at the end, in front of a complement or a place, or in front of the one element it contradicts; kein for a noun that would carry ein or no article, with the endings of ein and a plural of its own; and which of the two the noun's own article decides on.
CheckpointCheckpoint: Questions, the Accusative, and Negation
—An examination of everything since the first checkpoint: how a question is built and answered, the accusative of articles, nouns and pronouns, and the two ways a German sentence is denied. Every item combines at least two of the three sections wherever the material allows.
Sit the checkpoint46 questions · 184 marks · covers 3 sections