German Adjectives Explained (Adjective Declension Made Easy) | A1–A2 Grammar Lesson

Welcome to German with Johan Berlin and in today's lesson we'll be doing the topic adjectives in the German language. Now it's very important to know that in German the adjectives are declined. That means when we use an adjective in German it depends on what type of word are we using the adjective with. Is it a masculine noun? Yes. Is it nominative, accusative, dative? Yes. And it's also depending upon certain other factors like what kind of an article we are using the word with. Is it the good man or is it a good man or is it simply good man. So all these things pretty important and pretty interesting and we'll be coming to them but first we'll just have a quick look at some of the general adjectives which are used in German. So be with me and we'll first in the first part of this lesson get to learn these adjectives and the second part we'll try to use them in a sentence by declining them as I had mentioned earlier. So let's get started. We have a table here and it has some common adjectives. It begins with altmodisch. Yes. So basically I could say das ist ein altmodischer Telefon. Yes. That means it's an old style telephone. Aber das ist ein modernes Handy. Yes. That's a modern mobile. Perfect. So it's like old style and modern. These adjectives are written in pairs. Perfect. Then we have der Mann. Das ist ein alter Mann. That's an old man. Das ist ein junges Mädchen. That's a little girl. Maybe. Yes. So alt and jung. Old and young. Now you might see that I have been adding certain endings. Das ist ein alter Mann. Das ist ein junges Mädchen. Why am I adding these endings is what we'll be learning in the second part of the lesson. So don't worry. Okay. Das ist ein alter Schuh. That's an old shoe. Das ist ein neuer Schuh. That's a new shoe. Perfect. Now here we have I hope you can see it. It's called the adjective is called angenehm. Angenehm means pleasant. Yes. So as you see it looks like a pleasant light. Yes. Illuminating the whole room. So das ist ein angenehmes Licht. It's a pleasant light. The other is directly focused on her face. Isn't so pleasant. So das ist ein unangenehmes Licht. Unpleasant. Unangenehm. Yes. Okay. Now we have this little adjective here bekannt. Yes. It means known. And here we could say das ist ein bekannter Mann. That's a known person surrounded by people. And here er ist ein unbekannter Mann. Looks to be an unknown person. No one looks at him. Yes. Now we have an arm chair. It's called Sessel. We could say this is bequem. Comfortable. Yes. Bequem means comfortable. Das ist ein bequemer Sessel. It's a comfortable chair. This looks to be a rickety old stuhl. Not really comfortable. We could say das ist ein unbequemer Stuhl. It's like a chair in German. Stuhl. Perfect. Coming to the second row. We'll be doing breit und eng. These are the words for wide and narrow. So we could assume this to be a window or it could be a gate. Let's say it's a broad gate. Das ist eine breite Tür. That's a broad gate. This seems to be certainly a very narrow door. Hardly makes a person fit in. Das ist eine enge Tür. Enge means narrow. Now eng also has another meaning. If you want to learn it, it's close. Like for example, he's my close friend. Er is my enger Freund. Yes. Eng is like close as well. Now we have another combination bunt, schwarz und weiß. Bunt is black and white. We can't see it but it's basically colorful. Yes. Various colors. So here is a t-shirt. We could say das ist ein buntes Hemd or it's a t-shirt. Ein bunter t-shirt. And here we could say das ist ein schwarzweißer t-shirt. That's a black and white t-shirt. Yes. Then we have a combination dick dünn. Dick is like thick. You could say he's a thick, thick man. Er ist ein dicker Mann or a fat man. Dünn is like thin. Er ist ein dünner Mann. He's a thin man. Perfect. Coming here, we have eckig. It's like square. Yes. Rund. It's like a circle. So we could say das ist ein eckiger Computer. That's a square computer. That's a round pizza. Das ist eine runde Pizza. Perfect. Now here we have erster, letzter, first and last. So this always is used with definite article like der. Das ist der erster Mann. Das ist der letzte Mann. That's the first man. That's the last man. Because there could only be one first man. It could be only one last person. So we need to say der. Then we have these ants working hard carrying leaves. So they're called Ameisen in German. And they have this adjective fleißig. They are hard working. So I could say die sind fleißigen. Or let's say we have ants here. So we'll say sie sind fleißige Ameisen. They are hard working. Ants. And this looks to be a lazy man. Das ist ein fauler Mann. Perfect. So again a combination. Lazy. Hard working. Lazy. Now here we have two adjectives again. One is frei. The other is besetzt. Now frei basically means unoccupied. It has got nothing to do with free. Especially in relation to money. Yes. That's another adjective. It's called kostenlos. If you want to know it. This is simply when something is unoccupied. So this is a chair. Unoccupied chair. Das ist ein freier Stuhl. Here this is occupied. Das ist ein besetzter Stuhl. Perfect. Now we have two women here. One looks to be friendly. The other unfriendly. Freundlich und freundlich. Das ist ein freundlicher Frau. Das ist ein unfreundlicher Frau. Okay. We have two little girls here. And one looks to be happy. The other sad. We'll say das ist ein fröhliches Mädchen. Das ist ein trauriges Mädchen. Perfect. Now again we have this combination froh und sauer. What's the difference? Fröhlich, traurig. Froh und sauer. Froh is basically glad. When you're glad something happens. Yes. So it's not always used with a noun. It's used rather separately. I'm glad that you came. Yes. I'm glad we met each other. So it's a usage difference. Ich bin froh, dass du gekommen bist. Something like that. That I'm happy you came. So we'll work on it accordingly. Yes. We'll not use it with nouns mostly. We'll be using it separately just as an adjective. Yes. Okay. Now we could also say sauer. Sauer is like something is bitter. Also be used for a person. Das ist ein sauerer Mann. That is a bitter man. Yes. Then we have früh und spät. Früh is like early and spät is like late. Yeah. So we could say this bird is an early bird. If that makes sense. Das ist ein früher Vogel. Yes. And that's a late moon. Yes. Das ist ein späterer Mond. That makes sense. Okay. All right. So early and late. Yes. Ganz und kaputt. Ganz is like whole. When something is complete you say ganz. Kaputt is broken. Incomplete or basically broken. That would be the right translation. So here we could say Das ist ein ganzer Teller. It's like a plate. Complete plate. Das ist ein kaputter Teller. That's like a broken plate. All right. We have gefährlich, ungefährlich. That means dangerous, not dangerous. He's playing a dangerous game. Juggling knives. Das ist ein gefährliches Spiel. Dangerous game. Playing with balls. Not dangerous. Das ist ein ungefährliches Spiel. Not dangerous game. Okay. What do we have here? We have basically it's like gemütlich, cozy, ungemütlich, not cozy. Das ist ein gemütliches Zimmer. Das ist ein ungemütliches Zimmer. That's not so cozy room. Yes. So that's the difference here. Okay. And then we have gesund und krank. That's like you could say healthy or you could say fit and you could say sick. So here's a fit man. Seems to be eating an apple. So das ist ein gesunder Mann. Das ist ein kranker Mann. Perfect. Again we have gesund. This time it basically means healthy. Here the man was fit. Here the apple is healthy. So let's say das ist ein gesundes Obst. It's a healthy food. That's an unhealthy habit. Das ist ein ungesunder Gewohnheit. That's an unhealthy habit. Smoking cigarettes. Then we have glücklich, unglücklich. Like lucky, unlucky. Das ist ein glückliches Mädchen. Das ist ein unglückliches Mädchen. Perfect. And we have groß und klein. Das groß is big. Klein is basically small. Das ist ein großes Buchstaben. Das ist ein kleiner, kleines Buchstaben. Perfect. Big letter, small letter. So we just went through some of the basic adjectives. We can of course learn so many. This was just to show you in terms of usage that we do add an ending to these adjectives. In the next part of this lesson we learn how do we add these endings and also we learn how to make superlatives and comparatives of these adjectives. So tune in for the next lesson. Until then, this is John Berlin signing off. Take care.