Today, I received the following email:

HI !!!!
I’m writing because I want to thank you for the videos.
I hope you have time to answer my questions. I just start learning German and I find it very interesting.

My first question is: How can I start writing or making sentences?
I’m from México and I understand all you said but when it’s time to translate, there is the problem, I write my sentence and it doesn’t sounds like it suppose.

Can you tell me what is easier. Write in English and then translate to German or write in Spanish and then translate to German.

And thanks again for your help.

First of all, thank you for your compliments. I am always happy, when people learn something through them.

Now the answer to your question:

I think it should be easier to translate from English into German. Both are germanic languages so there are a lot of similarities in sentence structure and grammar rules.

To help you, here are some basic rules:

In German we have a classic S P O sentence structure. S = subject of the sentence that can either be a personal pronoun or a noun in the nominative. P = Prädikat that is the conjugated verb. O = object usually either a dative or accusative object. That sentence structure is for normal either positive or negative sentences.

If you want to ask questions in German the word order slightly changes. That means the conjugated comes before the subject. In German a question can either start a verb or a question word, like in English.

A difference comes up when talking of direct and indirect objects in German and in English because the order is the opposite. In German the indirect object (dative case) comes first followed by the direct object (accusative case).

Of course, this list is not complete but it gives you a first brief idea to get access to this topic.

Kirsten