Did you know that the German and English languages are actually linguistic siblings?

They are considered to be members of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family. So, if you look at how the two languages work, you can see how similar they are—both languages share the same alphabet, several German words are used in the English language and vice versa, they often follow the same grammatical rules, and many more.

Since they both stem from the same language family, and you are somewhat proficient in the English language, you might be surprised at the things you pick up when learning German!

The importance of mastering basic German phrases

1. Allow you to communicate in common situations

It’s not easy to master a language in a short time. Therefore, while you study the language, it’s important for you to at least know the basic phrases that you can use in everyday life. This is to ensure that you can communicate in common situations even if you haven’t mastered the language fully.

2. Help you to build new vocabularies

We all need to start somewhere, right? Before you can mimic the different slangs spoken by the native speakers, you must first start from the basics. As you practise these common phrases, you get to build your vocabulary. The more you practise and learn, the more proficient you will get.

3. Useful for when you travel to a foreign country

If you were to visit Germany or other German-speaking countries, you need to know how to converse, ask questions, and answer in German. If you don’t have basic knowledge of the language, then you might face difficulties in communicating with the locals. Mastering the basic phrases doesn’t mean you need to be fluent in the language. As long as the locals can understand what you’re saying, you’re good to go!

4. Help you to familiarise yourself with the sentence structure and grammar of the language

As mentioned before, German and English words often use the same grammatical rules. One similarity would be the way the verb changes based on its tense. For example, ‘to drink’ is changed to ‘drank’ or ‘drunk’ based on their tense, and similarly, the same word in German, ‘trinken’, is also changed to ‘trinkt’, ‘trank’ and ‘getrunken’.

If you are familiar with the English language, you will have a good understanding of how the German verb patterns work. And if you practise common German phrases, you get to familiarise yourself with the sentence structure, verb conjugations, and grammar rules easily.

10 Easy German phrases that beginners should know

Here are 10 of the basic phrases that you can practise if you want to learn the German language. Let’s have a look at the phrases and give them a try!

1. Greetings Hello! Hallo! Good morning! Guten Morgen! Good afternoon! Guten Tag! Good evening! Guten Abend!	2. Goodbyes Goodbye! Tschüss! Bye! Ciao! See you again! Auf Wiedersehen! See you soon! Bis bald!
3. How are you? How’s it going? Wie geht’s?	4. Fine, thanks. And you? Fine, thank you. And you? Gut, danke. Und dir?
5. My name is… My name is… Mein Name ist…	6. I’m pleased to meet you. I’m pleased to meet you. Es freut mich, dich kennenzulernen.
7. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Es tut mir leid	8. Please and thank you Please and thank you. Bitte und Danke.
9. How much does this cost? How much does this cost? Wie viel kostet das?	10. Where is…? How do I get to…? Wie komme ich zu…? Where is…? Wo ist….?
Bonus phrase: German is fun! Deutsch macht Spaß!

So, how was it? If you are new to the language, these are some of the phrases that can help you as you learn! With plenty of practice and studies, you’ll be proficient in the language in no time. But we all need to start somewhere, so let’s start from these 10 phrases! Let’s go! Or as they say in Germany, ‘Los geht’s!’