Stufe 1, Seite E

GESUNDHEIT!

In the United States when people sneeze most well wishers will respond with Bless you. However, it is not uncommon to hear Gesundheit as well. Gesundheit is the German word that means 'health,' so when one says Gesundheit after a sneeze, it is spoken to wish the person good health. Germans will respond with Danke. This expression first found its way to the United States through immigrating Ashkenazi Jews in the early 20th century, but it has now become part of the English language.

On the pevious page we reviewed the Nominative, Accusative, and Dative cases. There is one more case (and only one!): the Genitive. It is used primarily to show possession, and you've seen it a lot with persons' names: Annas Schwiegervater, Karls Vater. As you can see, this is very easy: just add an -s (but no apostrophe!) to the name.

If the "possessor" is a noun, not a name, then it gets a bit complicated. Just as there are key words to indicate a dative/indirect object ("to / for" whom), the genitive has a key word also: "of." Can you rephrase these English possessive phrases so they contan the word "of"? The first one is done for you.

the man's son	the son of the man
the woman's purse	the purse of the woman
a child's doll	the doll of a child
my father's house	the house of my father
each person's answer	the answer of each person
the book's cover	the cover of the book
the children's toys	the toys of the children
the women's opinion	the opinion of the women

To say these phrases in German, you must use the word order in the second column, using the genitive case form instead of the word "of." That means we need to know the genitive forms. Here they are:

	Masc.	Fem.	Neut.	Plural
"the"	des, -(e)s	der	des, (e)s	der
"a"	eines, -(e)s	einer	eines, -(e)s	--------------

Now, can you use this information and fill in the table for three more words?

	Masc.	Fem.	Neut.	Plural
"this"	dieses, -(e)s	dieser	dieses, -(e)s	dieser
"his"	seines, -(e)s	seiner	seines, -(e)s	seiner
"not any"	keines, -(e)s	keiner	keines, -(e)s	keiner

How'd you do? If you had problems, study them and try again at a later time.

Now, you're no doubt asking why there's an -(e)s in the masculine and neuter columns. Do you remember the -n that is in all the dative plural charts? What did it mean? Right: the noun itself ends in -n. So you've probably guess that masculine and neuter nouns end in -(e)s in the genitive. So far, so good. But when is it -es and when just -s? Look at these examples of genitive words and see if you can guess.

des Mannes	des Vaters
eines Tages	eines Tellerchens
keines Kindes	keines Wagens

What did you guess?

If you said you put -es on one-syllable words and just -s on words of more than one syllable, you are right!

Now let's try putting all this information into practice. Remember, "the man's hat" will look like "the hat of the man." Try these phrases. The first two are done for you.

the man's hat	der Hut des Mannes
no child's health	die Gesundheit keines Kindes
the woman's dress	das Kleid der Frau (feminine, so NO -s)
the children's teacher	der/die Lehrer/in der Kinder (NO -s)
this book's pages	die Seiten dieses Buches
each house's kitchen	die Küche jedes Hauses
my father's work	die Arbeit meines Vaters
her parents' car	das Auto ihrer Eltern

We're almost done! If you think back to the uses of the dative and accusative, what would you guess would be another use for the genitive? Did you say, "After certain prepositions?" Right again! Here they are, and you'll notice that nearly all of them contain the word "of" in their English meanings:

außerhalb	outside of
innerhalb	inside of, within
statt (also anstatt)	instead of
wegen	because of
trotz	in spite of
während	during ("at the time of")

Üben wir
Schreib das Deutsche. Dann klicke auf das Englische, um die richtige Antwort zu sehen.

in spite of the weather	trotz des Wetters
during the class	während der Klasse
instead of my brother	statt meines Bruders
outside of the house	außerhalb des Hauses
because of the concert	wegen des Konzerts
my sister's child	das Kind meiner Schwester
our grandfather's house	das Haus unseres Großvaters
during the trip	während der Reise
her daughter's sun screen	die Sonnencreme ihrer Tochter
within a week	innerhalb einer Woche
because of an accident	wegen eines Unfalls
in spite of my stepmother	trotz meiner Stiefmutter

How'd you do? If anything is unclear, be sure to ask your teacher.

Üben wir das Genitiv mit diesem Speedword.

Let's make sure this is clear. Give the German for these phrases:

1. the woman's car
2. my grandfather's hat
3. in spite of the concert
4. during the game
5. the children's teacher
6. because of my brother

Diese Aufgabe hat 12 Punkte.

Are you feeling "possessed" again? Let's go on to a new page.

Weiter: Stufe 1, Seite F