So please, please let me know in the comments what you think. So I’m REALLY curious what you think about them? I was really really excited when I got the idea for the layout, but maybe I’m completely off. Here’s one for the indefinite articles (those don’t have a plural)Īnd here’s one for er, sie, es (I actually forgot the plural, but technically, it’s just one extra ihnen for Dative )Īgain, if you’re used to looking at these tables, then part of you is probably rejecting my charts, but if you can let go of it, I think these charts are really helpful because you can easily remember them visually.īut of course I am not learning German :).
This one is from English Wikipedia, so it’s supposedly one of the “best”.Īnd the best thing is, that you can use the same template for lots of case-charts. Both charts contain the same information, but they’re completely different on a visual level.Īnd no, I didn’t pick a particularly bad table. Sorry, for making this so small… I was in a hurry. If you look at both these pictures for 20 seconds, which one are you more likely to remember better, overall? Is it easy to process on a visual level and maybe nice to look at?Īnd why? Because I think it’s easier to recall from memory than a table. But as I said… there is no deeper reason to organize the information in a table and the main focus for me was the question: Your initial reaction might be a bit negative and you might be really confused. Genitive is also in the center because we also have only two forms, it’s smaller, because it is less important.Those are in the center with lines showing you to which article they belong the real changes are in Dative but there we only have two forms.the accusative form is almost identical so that’s right next to them, the only difference is for “der-den”.The three genders (in nominative) are spaced out, like the corners of a triangle.Here’s the chart for the definite articles: So what I tried to do was to display the information about cases in a way that is based on visual principles rather than a grid of columns and rows.Īnd I’m pretty satisfied with the result, I have to say. I mean, they are, but that’s NOT their nature. What that means is essentially, that they’re a visual image with ALL the details in it. People always say that they’re learning the case tables. I mean… in statistics we use all kind of visualizations (pie charts, graphs etc) just to NOT look at a table. But from a visual standpoint, they’re pretty poor.
They’re fine if the purpose is to store the information, so you can look it up.
And like with any data, there are various ways to do that. If you think about it on an abstract level, case endings/forms are essentially just a bunch of data we need to display. That’s what everyone does, and that’s how it’s always been. Tables are no doubt the established way of displaying case forms. And as stupid as this might sound to you, the thought of having one of them in one of my articles made me cringe and I decided I will try to do it differently. You’re joking.”Īnd of course the video was a bit over the top.īut there is a true core to it. I really do hate case tables! They stand for everything that I DON’T like about language learning. Now you’re like “ Okay Emanuel… Case Fidget Spinner… we get it. I could tell you the problem now, but hey, see for yourself… So… I was working on the article on relative pronouns that I wanted to post this week, when I suddenly ran into a problem. It’s something really silly, but also really cool. And welcome to… well… I don’t actually really know how to call it.
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