So the next time you’re playing (German) Scrabble, don’t worry if you’ve only got “z” and “u” left. To form the Perfekt tense, you use a past participle and a helper, either “haben” or “sein”. Start using FluentU on the website with your computer or tablet or, better yet, download the FluentU app from the iTunes store or Google Play store. But I want to address one other thing real quick, for the beginners among you. The correct way to say this would be, “Ich will singen.”. Literally translated: I must tomorrow go to school. Zu is appropriate for locations that are close to you, whereas nach is appropriate for locations that are farther away. German: zu; Greek: επίσης; Italian: anche; Japanese: また おなじく; Korean: ...도 또한; Norwegian: altfor; Polish: również; European Portuguese: também; Romanian: și; Russian: также; Latin American Spanish: también; Swedish: också; Thai: อีกด้วย; Turkish: de, da kıyaslama; Ukrainian: також; Vietnamese: cũng Get the latest news and gain access to exclusive updates and offers. © 2020 Enux Education Limited. End of the free exercise to learn German: Prépositions : nach, in, zu, bei A free German exercise to learn German. The object of many verbs can be a clause beginning with dass (meaning that) or an infinitive with zu. Dartmouth’s German Studies Department has a lot of good examples to show you when you need to set the clause off by a comma, and when you don’t. lesen: to read - but as I see zu used sometimes with verbs in German I would like a bit of explanation on what the basis for doing that is. Now that’s a 100% personalized experience! Just tap on any subtitled word to instantly see an in-context definition, usage examples and a memorable illustration to help you understand how the word is used. If you see an interesting word you don’t know, you can add it to your vocabulary list for later review. There are many diverse influences on the way that English is used across the world today. All Years In this context, it means “to” or “towards” something or someone, and it changes the case of the following noun to dative. We hate SPAM and promise to keep your email address safe, Get regular language learning tips, resources and updates, starting with the "Complete Guide to Foreign Language Immersion" e-book, Sign up for our weekly blog newsletter for a chance to win a free FluentU Plus subscription (value $240). Using “damit” in German This is really just to help clarify the sentence and show proper word order. All Rights Reserved. Create an account and sign in to access this FREE content, the cathedral in Cologne, Cologne cathedral, zu seiner Entschuldigung muss man sagen …, he said that just to set her mind at rest, zu nichts taugen, zu nichts zu gebrauchen sein, etw zum Geburtstag/zu Weihnachten bekommen, to get sth for one’s birthday/for Christmas, exhibition to mark the anniversary of the revolution, zu dieser Frage möchte ich Folgendes sagen, my reply to this question is as follows, on this I would like to say the following, a speech on the anniversary of Schiller’s death, it’s enough to make you cry, it makes you want to cry, sie machte ihn zu ihrem Mann, sie nahm ihn zum Mann, Wasser und Saft im Verhältnis drei zu eins mischen, wir verkaufen die Gläser jetzt das Stück zu 99 Cent, for the first time, for the second time, for the third time. Think about the words you use all the time in your mother tongue. ten to four (time) = zehn vor vier. Er ging nach Hause, ohne ein Wort zu sagen. Look at these "to" examples in English and German : ten to four (score) = zehn zu vier. When you put this into an infinitive clause, the past participle goes before “zu” and the infinitive of either “haben” or “sein” goes after it. Since zu is a dative preposition, we need to select the correct dative article for our noun, like so: We then take the last letter of the new article (m, r, m) and add that on to the end of zu: (For a comprehensive rundown or refresher on German articles for different genders and cases, the University of Michigan has a helpful chart.). Swipe left or right to see more examples of the word you’re on. Instead of working, she went to the movies. These are basically a fancy way of expressing cause or condition. Access a complete interactive transcript of every video under the Dialogue tab, and review words and phrases with convenient audio clips under Vocab. There are two different ways to say “in order to” or respectively “to” in German: “damit” and “um … zu”. zu”. No zu is needed. Learning zu is the next step in building your German language foundation. 1 The meaning of "zu" in German. Last 10 years OK, go ahead, you’re on the right track, just keep going, das Material ist noch/nicht mehr zu gebrauchen, the material is still/is no longer usable, diese Rechnung ist bis Montag zu bezahlen, problems (that are) not to be underestimated, das sind alles nur winzige, leicht zu übersehende Punkte, these are just small points that can easily be overlooked, der zu prüfende Kandidat, der zu Prüfende. FluentU will even keep track of all the German words you’ve learned, then recommend videos and ask you questions based on what you already know. When Zu Means “To” or “Towards” One of the most common forms of zu is the dative preposition. Last 100 years There are two different ways to say “in order to” or respectively “to” in German: “damit” and “um … zu”. Saying: "Selbsterkenntnis ist der erste Schritt zur Besserung". 4 "zu" as a causal preposition. But we use nach for the first one and zu for the second one because of distance. In German, you can end up saying nach, zu, in, auf, neben and five million more of those prepositions (not a statistical figure): Ich gehe INS Kino. Remember sein (to be) and haben (to have)? Literally translated: Want you with him to the mall go? Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you Read our series of blogs to find out more. This way, you get German immersion online without ever worrying about missing a word. Now, you might wonder when you should use which one and how you can build a sentence with them. Those verbs are essential to the German language, not only for basic statements about the state of something or what someone has, but also for use as helping verbs. Ich gehe ZU Claudia. FluentU brings German to life with real-world videos. zu wem sprechen Sie morgen bei der Konferenz? the University of Michigan has a helpful chart, Dartmouth’s German Studies Department has a lot of good examples, Forum Frenzy: Your Guide to the Internet’s Best German Language Forums, Learn German with Movies: 10 Great Movies for Learning Real German, Learn German through Music: 8 Modern Classics to Get Started, Learn German Through TV: 8 Great Shows for German Learners, 10 German Slang Phrases to Sound Like a Native. Thanks for subscribing! The other word is in. You can’t speak German without knowing how to conjugate verbs, and instead of speaking in English all the time, you should speak in German more often, to get practice! If you liked this post, something tells me that you'll love FluentU, the best way to learn German with real-world videos. It’s not necessarily a word you’ll use everyday, but it’s one you’ll see often. Plus, it’ll tell you exactly when it’s time for review. They’re any Scrabble player’s secret weapon. All rights reserved. Let’s say you wanted to translate the sentence “We are giving him a fish.”, In German, you can just say, “Wir geben ihm einen Fisch.”. Learning German: Apologizing and attracting someone’s attention. How to say “in order to” in German. Here are the German infinitive constructions with zu that you should know: These constructions use the infinitive of a verb, much like modals do, but are set off by a comma. Take the English sentence, “I want to sing.” Our German modal would be wollen. This is also a handy way to figure out the gender of a noun that you don’t know. The Paul Noble Method: no books, no rote memorization, no chance of failure. Once you’ve watched a video, you can use FluentU’s quizzes to actively practice all the vocabulary in that video. can take anywhere. Prepositions are used in front of nouns and pronouns (such as me, him, the man and so on), and show the relationship between the noun or pronoun and the ... infinitiivin partikkeli, . In this post, we’ll be talking about a particular two-letter German word that’s incredibly versatile. Infinitive clauses don’t require um, ohne or (an)statt. View usage for: 2 "zu" as a locative preposition. You might think that when we use modals in German sentences, we would need zu. FluentU helps you get comfortable with everyday German by combining all the benefits of complete immersion and native-level conversations with interactive subtitles. German modal verbs include könnnen (to be able to), müssen (to have to), wollen (to want to), mögen (to like to), etc. Please check your email for further instructions. Which ones can you think of? Translations in context of "Zu" in German-English from Reverso Context: bis zu, zu tun, zu gewährleisten, zu finden, zu sehen Similarly, you don’t always need zu when referring to indirect objects, because the word order of the sentence can do the work for you. We’ll talk about the whole “Talking about location”-stuff in detail in a separate mini series soon (in about 153 years) but of course we can’t completely ignore that here. Most, but not all, surnames of the German nobility were preceded by or contained the preposition von (meaning "of") or zu (meaning "at") as a nobiliary particle. 3 "zu" as a temporal preposition. (Download). Last 300 years. Today, German nobility is no longer conferred by the Federal Republic of Germany (1949- ), and constitutionally the descendants of German noble families do not enjoy legal privileges. Here’s a handy online worksheet where you can compare these two contexts further and practice applying zu the right way. sie liebte ihn zu sehr, als dass sie ihn verraten hätte, du wolltest mir was vorsingen, dann mal zu, you wanted to sing me something? Rather than meaning, “I want to sing,” this is grammatically incorrect, because modals already have the “to” built in. Both sentences can now be linked like this: Ich rufe meinen Freund an, um ihm eine Frage zu stellen. Sie hat mir verziehen, ohne meine Ausrede gehört zu haben. zu translation in German - English Reverso dictionary, see also 'bis zu',gehen + zu',machen + zu',werden + zu', examples, definition, conjugation Amazon and the Amazon logo are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc, or its affiliates. Most German native speakers will have a similar list of common words, since we all share basic needs. Zu is sometimes confused with nach, which indicates a distant destination or direction: This one’s a bit confusing, because Germany and the supermarket are both destinations, technically. Before we dive into our zu guide below, we’ll need to cover German contractions so you can recognize how the word is being used in different example sentences. In German we use different prepositions to express movement, depending on where exactly you are going. Sometimes you need a comma to set the clause off. In this context, it means “to” or “towards” something or someone, and it changes the case of the following … We look at some of the ways in which the language is changing. We also participate in other affiliate advertising programs for products and services we believe in. Anstatt zu … In German, the comma matters as it separates the two ideas. 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