Your weekly plan
Tailored for a Portuguese/Swedish speaker — grammar and vocabulary focus
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Your linguistic advantage
Portuguese → German: Shared Latin roots give you large vocabulary overlap (e.g. interessant / interessante, Musik / música, Kultur / cultura). You already understand grammatical gender — you just need to learn which gender each German noun takes.
Swedish → German: Germanic word order, compound words, and separable verbs feel familiar. Many everyday cognates: Hand / hand, Wasser / vatten, Haus / hus, gut / god.
Your real focus: The 4-case system (nominative, accusative, dative, genitive), strong/weak/mixed adjective endings, separable + modal verbs, and building a stock of idiomatic expressions.
Recommended resources
Grammar: Deutsche Grammatik — Ein Handbuch für den Ausländerunterricht (Duden) · Hammer's German Grammar (for structure)
Vocabulary: Anki with frequency decks · Langenscheidt Grundwortschatz Deutsch
Reading: Der Spiegel (B2+) · nachrichtenleicht.de (B1 news) · Deutsche Welle — Langsam gesprochene Nachrichten
Listening: Easy German (YouTube) · Slow German podcast · Extra auf Deutsch (A2–B1)
Pronunciation: Forvo.com for native recordings · BABBEL pronunciation module · German with Jenny (YouTube)
Grammar — cases & conjugation
The core system German is built on. This is your main challenge.
The 4 cases — article changes
| Case | Use | Masc (der) | Fem (die) | Neut (das) | Plural (die) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nominative | Subject | der | die | das | die |
| Accusative | Direct object | den | die | das | die |
| Dative | Indirect object | dem | der | dem | den (+n) |
| Genitive | Possession | des (+s) | der | des (+s) | der |
Changes highlighted — nominative is the baseline. Memorise: only masculine changes in accusative. All change in dative.
Swedish parallel
Swedish dropped most cases but kept the genitive -s: mannens bil = das Auto des Mannes. The logic is identical — only the marking differs.
Prepositions that fix the case
Always accusative
durch · für · gegen · ohne · um · bis · entlang
Always dative
aus · bei · mit · nach · seit · von · zu · gegenüber
Two-way (Wechselpräp.)
an · auf · hinter · in · neben · über · unter · vor · zwischen
movement → acc, location → dat
movement → acc, location → dat
Genitive prepositions
wegen · trotz · während · statt · innerhalb · außerhalb
Reading & comprehension
Texts graded to match your actual level. Tap underlined words for Portuguese glosses.
Pronunciation
You already know ä/ö/ü. Focus here: sounds that differ from both Portuguese and Swedish.
Your accent prediction
Your German will likely carry a Swedish melodic intonation — a gentle pitch rise-fall that German doesn't use. German is more monotone and staccato by comparison. The good news: this is perceived as a charming accent, rarely causes misunderstanding, and self-corrects with exposure. Focus on the sounds below first.
Idiomatic expressions
Natural German that textbooks skip. Tap each card for context and Portuguese equivalent.
Exercises
Focused on your gaps: cases, verb forms, and sentence construction.