If you need a really smart method to learn German
prepositions, here is what you´ve been looking for

Trust me - you´re not alone with your troubles. There are many other who have to learn German prepositions, and from my own experience as a teacher of German grammar I would say for almost everybody it is a real struggle.

The biggest problem here, is that prepositions are rather abstract. Moreover there are no evident signs for the use of the correct case!

Of course there are many prepositions; here I present the most important ones, which already will take you a long way.

After the first 6 months of learning German, you should at least know the following prepositions:

Prepositons with accusative; the most important are:
durch, bis, für, ohne, entlang, gegen, um

Prepositions with dative:
bei, mit, seit, aus, zu, nach, von

Two-way-prepositions. They can use the dative as well as the accusative:
hinter, an, neben, auf, unter, zwischen, vor, in, über

Whether a preposition of change uses the Dative or Accusative, depends on whether it indicates a position or an action (movement). An action is an answer to a question such as “Where are you going?” and a position is an answer to a question such as “Where are you?"

Probably you will have learned it more or less this way:

learn German grammar two way prepositions

Most students find the matter of German prepositions of change not that simple. Why? Because it's simply too abstract and it's too much information.

However, you´ll see that you can
learn all this in a much easier way

Here you find 3 strategies
to learn German prepositions

songs
colors
mnemonic images

Let´s get started with songs

I'll show you how it works with songs by means of an example with the accusative prepositions. Here they are once more: durch, bis, für, ohne, entlang, gegen, um

Choose a song, that you like and whose melody you can easily remember. In principle, it could be any song.

Then arrange these German prepositions in such a way, you're able to sing them on the melody of the song. In my example I provide a bit of solid German culture and choose the folk song “Laurentia” as my base song. When you ask your teacher of German, he or she will know the song :)

For being able to sing the prepositions on the melody of the song, I rearrange them and build in the accusative-information at the same time. It looks like this then:

And here is what it sounds like:

You then do the same for the dative prepositions and the prepositions of change. Choose a song, arrange the prepositions according to the melody, add the case rule – and you will see, that it is easier to learn which case is used by these German prepositions.

Is this too much work for you? Don't you fancy singing yourself? No problem! I have already taken care of that for you. You find the accusative-song and two more songs right here.
But why did I write the accusative prepositions in blue, actually?

Use a special color for every case
when you learn German prepositions

Colors can eventually be powerful aids, when dealing with the comprehension of the German case system. Especially in connection with the prepositions, with the help of colors one can bring a lot more clarity and comprehension in the chaos.

My color-tip for you:

Use blue for the accusative and red for the dative. Why exactly these colors? In principle, you can, of course, choose other colours. I have chosen these colors for the “German grammar POWER-Learning-Kit” for a certain reason and with this I have developed a vast system. But that would lead us too far at this stage.

OK, write now all the accusative-prepositions in blue in your vocabulary-notebook or - even better - on your flash cards. You'll memorize quite quickly the color, and it will be easy to remember that these prepositions use the accusative.

(entlang=along, durch=through, um=around, gegen=against, für=for, bis=until, ohne=without)

Now, do exactly the same with the dative-prepositions, but make sure to use red.

(aus=out of, bei=at/next to, mit=with, nach=after, seit=since, von=from, zu=to, außer=except, gegenüber=opposite to)

How powerful the use of colors is, is shown with the two-way-prepositions. To start with, for once you have to use two colours while writing them down, red and blue. How you do it, is up to your creativity. It could look like this for instance:

learn German prepositions dative accusative

(auf=on/upom, hinter=behind, an=to/on, unter=under/beneeth, neben=next to, in=in/into, über=over, zwischen=between, vor=before/in front of)

And now we use colors
in combination with mnemonic images

If you´re already inspired by the use of colors with the learning of German prepositions, you are going to be wept off your feet in a second when you see the power of colors in combination with mnemonic images. Here you see an example for the preposition “hinter” (behind):

Now, guess which case has to be used here?

I bet you clicked correctly on “DATIVE”, didn´t you? You see at the first glance that it is about a position. Moreover, the dative is integrated in the image by the color red.

Just as you can see immediately in the next image that the accusative follows the preposition “hinter” (behind).

I think, I know what you're wondering now:
Are there more such images? How much more simple would it be to teach or learn German prepositions using mnemonic images? This way it's a lot more fun, isn't it?

I am happy to tell you: “yes”. There exist such pretty mnemonic images for all the presented German two-way-prepositions, and they're even available as posters, in A4 paper format! Moreover also many, many more mnemonic illustrations which will make your learning of German grammar a lot easier. And, yes, it doesn't matter whether you're a student or a teacher - it's a lot more fun in any case

Prepositions as well as many, many other problems of the German grammar - you're guaranteed to learn them easier with the new standard work for the learning or teaching of German grammar.

Learn German grammar with mnemonics -
The German grammar POWER-Learning-Kit!

For students AND teachers of German grammar

But, of course, for the start you can also just sign up for my absolutely FREE 5-days-video-course: