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Year 8

What makes me happy: adjective agreement, read and respond to a poem in writing

I can read and understand a German poem about things that make me happy, and use adjectives before nouns and verbs as nouns when writing my own poem.

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New
New
Year 8

What makes me happy: adjective agreement, read and respond to a poem in writing

I can read and understand a German poem about things that make me happy, and use adjectives before nouns and verbs as nouns when writing my own poem.

Link copied to clipboard

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Lesson details

Vocabulary and transcripts for this lessons

Key learning points

  1. When adjectives come before nouns, they have different endings for definite and indefinite articles.
  2. For plural nominative nouns, add '-en' to all adjectives with definite articles; without an article, the ending is '-e'.
  3. When singular nouns are used without an article, the adjective ending is the same as for the indefinite article.
  4. Many verb infinitives can make neuter nouns; this is called nominalisation.
  5. Knowledge of vocabulary and structures makes it possible to understand a poem and respond to it creatively in writing.

Keywords

  • Plural - more than one

  • Adjective agreement - when the ending of an adjective matches the noun it describes in gender and number

  • Nominalisation - making nouns from other types of words, e.g., infinitive verbs

Common misconception

Verbs are always verbs and nouns are always nouns.

Sometimes words of one type can be used as another type. For example, 'ich mag das Schwimmen' (I like swimming) is the verb 'schwimmen' used as a noun. When used as nouns, verbs have a gender (neuter), the article 'das' and a capital letter.


To help you plan your year 8 german lesson on: What makes me happy: adjective agreement, read and respond to a poem in writing, download all teaching resources for free and adapt to suit your pupils' needs...

Many pupils will enjoy the opportunity to use their German creatively to write their own 'Vergnügungen' poems. Teachers may want to encourage pupils to rehearse, learn, record and/or perform their poems, too.
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This content is © Oak National Academy Limited (2025), licensed on Open Government Licence version 3.0 except where otherwise stated. See Oak's terms & conditions (Collection 2).

Lesson video

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6 Questions

Q1.
Which of these words means 'already'?
Zeit
gern
Mal
Correct answer: schon
wieder
Q2.
Which of these words are compound nouns?
Ferien (pl)
Correct answer: Großstadt (f)
Kleidung (f)
Correct answer: Schwimmbad (nt)
Tour (f)
Q3.
Match the German and English.
Correct Answer:Jahr (nt),year

year

Correct Answer:Juli (m),July

July

Correct Answer:Kultur (f),culture

culture

Correct Answer:Monat (m),month

month

Correct Answer:Türkei (f),Turkey

Turkey

Correct Answer:Blick (m),look, view

look, view

Q4.
Order the words to say: 'It is fun to be on the beach.'
1 - es
2 - macht
3 - Spaß
4 - am
5 - Strand
6 - zu
7 - sein
Q5.
Write in English: 'Es schneit im Dezember.'
Correct Answer: It snows in December, It is snowing in December
Q6.
Write in German: 'I am visiting the country in March.'
Correct Answer: Ich besuche das Land im März

6 Questions

Q1.
What is the English title of the German poem 'Vergnügungen'?
Correct Answer: Pleasures
Q2.
Match each of the sentences below to the correct description of the word 'swimming' in these sentences.
Correct Answer:Ich schwimme.,conjugated verb

conjugated verb

Correct Answer:Ich mag schwimmen.,infinitive verb

infinitive verb

Correct Answer:Ich finde Schwimmen toll.,noun + no article

noun + no article

Correct Answer:Das Schwimmen ist toll.,noun + article

noun + article

Q3.
'__________ Schuhe'. Choose the correct adjective.
bequem
Correct answer: bequeme
bequemen
Q4.
'__________ Jahr'. Choose the correct adjective.
letzt
letzter
Correct answer: letztes
letzte
letzten
Q5.
Order the words to say: 'a small plant and a small lake'.
1 - eine
2 - kleine
3 - Pflanze
4 - und
5 - ein
6 - kleiner
7 - See
Q6.
Write in German: 'a cold village'.
Correct Answer: ein kaltes Dorf

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