German 391: German for Reading Knowledge
Corrections and Additions to the Course Textbook

In the second paragraph of section 4, replace the period after the word "English" with a comma.

Add this paragraph after the first paragraph:

Replace the first paragraph under the "Dative" heading with this one:

Add the following paragraph just before the heading "Common Nouns with Endings in the Singular":

Insert this text at the end of section 2:

Replace the first sentence of the first paragraph of section 3 with this one:

"Regular" verbs are simply those which follow the most common pattern of conjugation.

And in the next-to-last paragraph on the page, append this text to its end:

or "he has been playing." Note that all of these translations still share the meaning that the action is taking place at the "present moment" (although that can be defined by a specific future time reference) – whether the action is ongoing, starting, finishing, or only momentary is what you need to interpret from context.

In section 6b, insert the following passage after the second sentence of the paragraph.

Sometimes it makes more sense in English to use an even more abstract way to translate man, by using English passive voice. For example: In schlechten Zeiten kürzt man die Budgets. = "In bad times, budgets are reduced." Keep in mind that the essential meaning of man is that the speaker cannot or does not want to specify a subject for the sentence's main verb.

In section 7, modify the the second sentence as follows:

Adjectival nouns are modified by adverbs rather than adjectives (in agreement with the normal relationship of adverbs to adjectives), including adverbial usages of words such as viel (much) and nichts (nothing):

For manch-: change "many, some" to "some, many"

For solch-: change "such" to "such, so, those, etc. Consult your dictionary"

Replace the first paragraph of section 3 with this one:

Most English verbs form their past tense by adding the suffix -ed (example: played), and German regular verbs behave similarly, by adding the suffix -t- (or, when pronounceability requires it, -et-). However, unlike English verbs, which lose their person/number verb suffixes in past tense (example: I played, she played) German verbs do carry person/number suffixes; they are simply appended to the past-tense suffix. Compare the person/number suffixes you already learned in Unit 2 on p. 12, and note the similarities between those present-tense endings and these past-tense endings. Thus, using spielen (to play) and warten (to wait) as our examples:

Replace the last paragraph on this page with this one:

Watch out for potential confusion between present-tense and past-tense forms of regular verbs. Consider:

Let's examine wartetest: The root of the verb is wart-, the past-tense marker is -et-, and the person/number marker is -est.

At the very beginning of section #4, insert the following text.

#9: Revise gloss to read: "danach – (in this context:) afterwards, after that"

#10: Add new gloss: "früher – earlier, at an earlier time, at one time, previously"

Insert this new section (and renumber existing sections 4-6 as 5-7):

Replace the first paragraph of section 5 (previously numbered as "4"), "Adjectives as Nouns" with this text:

In English we sometimes use adjectives as nouns, e.g., "the rich and the poor," and German does the same. In both languages, essentially the adjective is standing for a missing, unspecified noun which this adjective would be modifying, such as: "the rich (people) and the poor (people)" or "I'll take the blue (one) and the green (one)". But you'll note two differences in how such words appear in German: they are capitalized like all other nouns, and they also carry the meaningful adjectival ending they would have as if they were modifying a noun. For example, in nominative case, referring to the plural idea of "rich (people)" and "poor (people)": "the rich" = die Reichen, "the poor" = die Armen. Such adjectival nouns are far more common in German than in English. Here are several more examples:

der Alte (nominative case, singular) “the old man” or some other masculine being, depending on context

die Alte (nominative or accusative case, singular) “the old woman” or some other female being, depending on context

einen Grünen (accusative case, singular) could refer to “a person associated with the Green party” or in a more general context, simply “a green one”

das Alte (nominative or accusative case, singular) “the old one” (given the neuter gender, it presumably refers to an object) or more abstractly, “that which is old”

das Gebaute (nominative or accusative case, singular) “that which was built” or "what was built" or perhaps "the buildings" - as always, adjust to the context

As you can see, you must have mastered the meanings of the adjectival endings you learned in section 3 above, and you will need to pay attention to the form of any definite or indefinite articles which belong to this noun, in order to figure out this noun's role and number within the sentence.

Also keep in mind that such nouns would be modified by adverbs rather than by other adjectives, in agreement with what you learned in section 4 above, and like the adjectival nouns you learned about in Unit 2, section 7. The third example below includes this situation.

And add a third example:

Ich suche immer stark Überraschendes als Geburtstagsgeschenk für meine Schwester.
I always look for something really surprising as a birthday present for my sister. [or:]
I always look for really surprising things as a birthday present for my sister.

In the paragraph beginning "Sometimes . . . ": change "certain verbs or adjectives" to "certain verbs, nouns, or adjectives."

Add this passage before the "Sometimes . . ." paragraph:

Rarely, you may encounter situations where case does matter for reading comprehension. The meaning of a certain group of prepositions – the so-called "two-way prepositions" (an, auf, hinter, neben, in, über, unter, vor and zwischen) – changes subtly depending on whether the accusative or dative case is used after them. If you see accusative case, then a changing condition is being described. If dative case, then a static, unchanging condition. Normally the rest of the sentence will clarify the preposition's meaning for you, but in a few odd circumstances, mainly relating to physical movement or location, you may be left unsure, and you will need to consider the case as useful information. For example:

Note the accusative case. Here a change is being described, from "not in the house" (before) to "in the house" (afterwards). Compare to:

Note the dative case. Here there is no change regarding the state of being "in the house." In English we don't have this clarity, so you may need to take extra care to communicate this in your translation. The second sentence could also be translated as: "He is in the house, walking," or, using parentheses to acknowledge that we're embellishing the sentence: "He walks (around) in the house."

Add this passage at the end of section 1:

A tip for untangling complex sentences: You will find it very useful to remember that prepositional phrases are stand-alone, self-enclosed units of meaning (just as in English). All of the words enclosed between a preposition and its object all belong within that phrase – and thus are not modifiers of anything outside of that phrase! Consider, for example:

First you can easily identify über seine frühen Gedichte and in der Zeitschrift as two prepositional phrases. That leaves you with a much simpler sentence skeleton to work on: Lange sinnte sie ... nach, or roughly: "For a long while she pondered ...." Next, moving your attention to the prepositional phrases, you can confidently take as an absolute law that, for example, seine frühen are words applying only to Gedichte. Even as you then add in the prepositional phrases, respect the solid work you've done so far on the skeleton, and likewise respect the integrity of the stand-alone prepositional phrases. Thus: "For a long while she pondered his early poems in the journal," or, equivalently: "She meditated for a long time on his early poems in the magazine."

Add to end of section 4:

Note that many German verbs are only sometimes used reflexively, and then they have slightly different meanings accordingly. German-English dictionaries will usually give translations of the reflexive meanings separately from the non-reflexive meanings of these verbs. Watch out for abbreviations such as refl. in your dictionary, and remember in any case that the German reflexive pronoun in the sentence will often not correspond to an English word – it is instead primarily a signal that the German verb is being used reflexively.

Insert new section 5 (and renumber existing section 5 as section 6):

Add this note about the conjunction daß:

Replace this paragraph: "As you can see we have used a simple adjective in its comparative form to make a verb by adding a prefix and the infinitive ending -n or -en."

With this:

In these verbs you can easily recognize the root adjective, which may appear in either its positive or comparative form. Usually one of the common verbal prefixes precedes this adjectival root, and often the adjective's vowel will gain an umlaut, but nevertheless it's easy to see the relationship between the meaning of the verb and its root adjective.

At the bottom of the page, add this paragraph:

German also allows nouns to be formed directly from infinitive verb forms. For example: Ich lernte das Schwimmen. = "I learned how to swim," or: Das Schwimmen in der See ist nicht leicht. = "Swimming in the ocean is not easy." This kind of word formation carries a specifically different meaning than when adding the -ung ending. This kind of noun is always neuter, and always refers specifically to the act, action, or process. For example, whereas Vergrößerung (feminine) refers to a photographic enlargement as an object – thus as the end product of the act –, Vergrößern (neuter) refers to the act of enlarging a photo. Similarly, compare Erklären (the act of explaining) with Erklärung (the explanation itself). Watch for capitalization and sentence position as clues for when a verb is being used as a noun in this way.

Replace this:

Er ist seit einer halben Stunde unterwegs gewesen.
He has been on his way since half an hour ago.

With this:

Österreich hat in diesem Jahr vorläufig mehr an das Ausland geliefert als vom Ausland angekauft.
So far this year, Austria has shipped more to foreign countries than it has purchased from foreign countries.

In section 3, the numbering of the first subsection should be "a)", not "1)".

In section 3, delete the alternative translation of the first example:

[or:] He is probably going to study German.

At the top of the page, revise the second sentence to read:

If so, then consider whether the sentence makes more sense as a probability statement, and then interpret the verb tense appropriately: As present instead of what looks like future, or as past instead of what looks like future perfect.

At the bottom of the page, revise rule #1 as follows:

1) German rarely omits the relative pronoun as we often do in English: "The book he is reading is interesting." Thus, normally, the relative pronoun will be the first word [...]

Add a new section to this unit:

This ship has been built by the new firm.

Revise section #3 as follows:

Insert a new section #4 to this unit (and renumber existing section #4 as #5):

sollen is often used to distance the speaker from someone else's claim, like English "is said to," "is supposedly," or "allegedly": Dieses Buch soll interessant sein. (This book is said to be interesting. Or: This book is supposed to be interesting.)

wollen has two other common usages. As you will be able to tell from context, it can mean "to claim to" rather than "to want to": Der Professor will diese Tatsache entdeckt haben. (The professor claims to have discovered this fact.) wollen can also be used like a regular, non-modal verb (even taking a direct object), like English "to want a thing": Er will das Buch. (He wants the book.)

The first phrase in Sentence #14 accidentally uses grammar not covered until Unit 13. You may alternatively translate this version of the sentence (which has exactly the same meaning in the end):

Von den Wissenschaftlern, die am Human Genome Project beteiligt sind, wurde gestern .... [the remainder stays the same]

Add this sentence to the introductory remark for section 1d:

More specifically, this usage is exactly equivalent to a combination of the modal verb können with passive voice. It might help you to think about how this usage of lassen is similar to 1-b-ii above: something "lets itself be done."

Also add these passive-voice equivalents to each of the two examples there:

Dieses Wort kann nicht leicht übersetzt werden.

Das Fenster kann nicht geöffnet werden.

Insert this text just before the the paragraph: "Here is an extensive . . .":

#1: Add ", medicine" after "(medicinal) drug"

#5: Replace "to require" with "to challenge, to call upon to do something"

#2: Change "Werten" to "Werte."

#6: Add a new gloss: "aufarbeiten (in this context): to process all of something, to (chemically) break down completely, to use up"

#10: Add two new glosses: "prädestiniert – predestined" and "der Part – orchestral score"

#15: In the gloss, "Wassily Kandinsky" should be italicized.

#2: Change "global warming" to "climate change."

#8: Correct the final word, wurde, to wurden.

#10: Add a new gloss: "der Typschlüssel – (vehicle-related) type code"

Insert a new, second sentence in the paragraph beginning "The Subjunctive II present tense":

Also revise the label "Examples:" that follows the above paragraph to read:

Add a note to the second example sentence that that is in indicative, not subjunctive mood. Also add a third example:

#4: Change "eine Landkarte" to "einen Stadtplan"

#12: Change "der Eisenmangel" to "des Eisenmangels"

#5: The glosses for Einkorn and Emmer need the English indefinite article "a." These German terms describe specific varieties of grains from within the history of the entire wheat family of grains, which is large.

#7: In the fourth line of that text, the capital letter O should actually be the number 0 (zero).

Add this note to the "Dates" section:

Also insert these two examples in the list of other "Dates" examples:

Montags  on Mondays
die Zwanziger  the 20s (a particular decade within a century)