In the Know Germany , a guide to living and working in Germany. Both guides are excellent resources for anyone who wants to gain a more thorough knowledge of the German language and culture. Even though English is a Germanic language, it can be quite difficult for native speakers of English to learn because of its gendered nouns, four cases and difficult pronunciation. To the bewilderment of language students throughout the world, all nouns are capitalized in German. But capitalization will be the least of your troubles when it comes to German nouns.
Every noun is either masculine, feminine or neutral.
Articles and adjectives agree with the number and gender of the nouns they modify. They also change to agree with the function of the noun, be it nominative, genitive, accusative or dative. I see the man' would be 'Ich sehe den Mann' in German. But word order gets considerably more complicated when you start adding modifiers and extra clauses to the sentence. In discussing communication, the guides look at cultural tendencies towards direct or indirect speech.