Exercise 5 for Lesson 3

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Grammar

The Possessive -s is similar to English. But Germans leave out the apostrophe (’):

Wo ist Frau Maywalds Büro?
Where is Mrs. Maywald’s office?

Exceptions are words that end on -s, -ß, -x, or -z. Here, we leave out the s, not the apostrophe:

Das ist Fritz’ Büro.
That is Fritz’s office.

Hint

Let’s take another look at the dialog:

Meili: Wo ist Frau Maywalds Büro?
Where is Mrs. Maywald’s office?

Paul: Hmmm… das Büro von Anna Maywald?
Hmmm… the office of Anna Maywald?

We see that we can avoid using the possessive -s by using the word von.

For now, you’re still riding with training wheels. That means in our writing exercises, it is currently no problem if you forget a punctuation mark (,.!?) or disregard upper and lower case. But that will change soon! So remember for the future: All nouns and sentence beginnings in capital letters, the rest in lower case.

5 Rephrase the sentences
Move the orange boxes with the words in the right order. 📱↷ Turn your mobile phone for a better view of the whole sentence. If you can’t write ä, ö, ü, and ß then replace them with ae, oe, ue, and ss.

Change the sentences using the possessive -s.

Take a look at how the German sentence matches the English sentence word for word.

Ich weiß, wo das Büro von Frau Maywald ist. ➞ Ich weiß, wo Frau Maywalds Büro ist.

I know where the office of Mrs. Maywald is. ➞ I know where Mrs. Maywald‘s office is.

Der Tag von Paul ist ok. ➞ …

The day of Paul is ok. ➞ Paul‘s day is ok.

ist ok.
Pauls
Tag

Ich suche die Nummer von Paul. ➞ Ich suche .

I’m looking for the number of Paul. ➞ I’m looking for Paul‘s number.

Now change the sentences using the word von.

Annas Büro ist neu. ➞ Das Büro von Anna ist neu.

Anna‘s office is new. ➞ The office of Anna is new.

Fritz’ Frau ist nicht hier. ➞ …
Fritz‘s wife is not here. ➞ The wife of Fritz is not here.

Frau
von
ist nicht hier.
Die
Fritz

Igors Frau arbeitet in Deutschland. ➞ arbeitet in Deutschland.

Igor‘s wife works in Germany. ➞ The wife of Igor works in Germany.

Mark this lesson:

Not done ☐

Next lesson:

4 | Wie geht‘s?

Ask and answer questions about one's condition
Personal pronouns: ihr, sie (plural), Sie (plural)

4 Responses

Ernest Onuigbo says:

August 4, 2024 at 9:33 PM

Hi,

I answered all the questions correctly. 🙄 Why did Ai cross out…” Ich suche Pauls Nummer”?

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1. german-stories.com says:
  
  August 5, 2024 at 3:57 PM
  
  Hi Ernest! It’s not AI, it’s just the online exercise. Ich suche and . are already there. So if you write “Ich suche Pauls Nummer”, the whole sentence is Ich suche Ich suche Pauls Nummer. which is wrong. Look closely at the words that are missing.
Kaneshia Edmonds says:

October 1, 2024 at 10:40 PM

When is it best to use either the s on the end or von?

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1. german-stories.com says:
  
  October 2, 2024 at 10:47 AM
  
  Hi Kaneshia! They’re interchangeable, so it’s up to your personal preference.

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