The parts that actually cause trouble, each short enough to finish in a sitting.
01German words from English — the endings that convertA large slice of German vocabulary is English vocabulary with a different ending. Learn about fifteen conversions and thousands of words come free.02German present tense — the endings and the seven vowel changesOne set of endings covers almost every German verb in the present. A short group changes its vowel in du and er, and three verbs are irregular outright.03German imperative — giving instructions to du, ihr and SieThree forms, one for each way of saying "you". The du form is the only one that needs learning, and it is the infinitive with the ending taken off.04German noun gender — the endings that predict der, die and dasMost German nouns tell you their gender in the last few letters. Here are the endings that are reliable enough to trust, and the ones that aren't.05German personal pronouns — ich, mich, mir and the restNine pronouns in three cases. English already does this with I, me and my, so the idea is familiar even when the words are not.06German plurals — the five endings and who takes whichGerman has five plural endings instead of one, but they are not random. Gender predicts most of them, and a short set of rules covers the rest.07German cases — what nominative, accusative, dative and genitive are forNominative, accusative, dative and genitive without the memorised tables. What each case is for, how to tell which one you need, and why the article changes.08German prepositions — which case each one takesEvery German preposition forces a case, and this is where most case mistakes actually happen. Two short lists and one rule cover almost all of them.09German word order — the verb-second rule and what breaks itGerman word order is freer than English in one way and stricter in another. The verb's position is fixed; almost everything else can move. Here is the system.10German modal verbs — can, must, want, should, may, likeSix verbs that change what a sentence means and send the main verb to the end. They are irregular in the singular, and that irregularity is the whole difficulty.11German negation — nicht or keinGerman negates with two different words depending on what is being negated, and nicht moves around the sentence. Both rules are short.12German separable verbs — why the verb splits in halfGerman verbs that break apart and send their prefix to the end of the sentence. How to spot them, why they do it, and how to read a sentence where the meaning arrives last.13German reflexive verbs — sich freuen, sich waschenA large group of German verbs carries sich, often where English carries nothing at all. The pronoun is accusative unless something else already is.14German past tense — Perfekt or PräteritumGerman has two past tenses that mean the same thing. The choice is about speech versus writing, not about time, with a short list of verbs that break the rule.15German adjective endings — one question instead of three tablesAdjective endings look like forty-eight boxes to memorise. They are really one question — has the article already shown the case? — plus a short pattern.16German comparatives — bigger, biggest, as big asGerman comparatives are simpler than English ones: there is no "more expensive", every adjective takes the ending. The irregulars are a list of six.17German subordinate clauses — weil, dass, wenn and the verb at the endOne group of joining words kicks the verb to the end of its clause and another leaves it alone. Knowing which is which is most of German sentence structure.18German relative clauses — der Mann, der dort stehtThe relative pronoun looks exactly like the article, takes its gender from the noun and its case from its own clause, and sends the verb to the end.19German da- and wo- words — darauf, damit, worauf, womitGerman cannot put a thing after a preposition when that thing is a pronoun. It glues da- or wo- to the front of the preposition instead, and English has no equivalent.20German passive — werden plus a participleThe German passive is one verb plus the participle you already know from the perfect tense. The one thing to watch is that werden also means "to become".21German Konjunktiv II — würde, hätte, wäreOne verb form covers both politeness and hypotheticals in German. Three words do most of the work and the rest is a single pattern.