Negation

Negation

Nicht

Nicht is used as “not” in English. Such as

Ich arbeite nicht (I don’t like)

When used with verbs, “nicht” stays at the end of the sentence. If it is used with adjectives, it stays just before the adjective and adverbs:

Ich bin nicht böse (I am not angry)

Ich arbeite nicht viel (I don’t work hard)

When used with perfect and past perfect tenses, nicht comes just before the past participle:

Ich habe nicht studiert (I haven’t studied)

Nicht is used with nouns as well when definite article is used:

Ich habe den Stift nicht (I don’t have the pencil)

Nicht is used with intransitive verbs. If the verb takes an object, i.e. when nouns are used, you need to use “kein”. See below for further explanations.

Nein

Bist du Student? (Are you a student?)

Nein, Ich bin kein Student (I am not a student)

Kein

Note the word “kein” in the above sentence. If a negative noun should be used, you need to use an appropriate form of kein. Here, similar declension rules, as we covered before for adjectives, apply. For example; in the sentence “Ich bin kein Student”, the verb “sein” which requires nominative case is used, therefore kein is used. But, for example if you are a female student you would decline the kein for nominative feminine case: Ich bin keine Studentin. If you need to use accusative plural objects, you would also use “keine”: Sie liest keine Bücher (I don’t read books)

To sum up, the declension of “kein” is like the declension of indefinite article:

Keiner

Another negation word similar to kein is “keiner”, which means nobody. In German, there is another word for nobody and it is niemand. However, its grammatical use is quite different than “keiner”. See below for further explaination.

In fact, “keiner” is a pronoun that refers to people and things. Therefore, it needs to be declined corresponding to pronouns:

Niemand

The main difference between niemand and kein(er) is that niemand cannot be used as adjective and it is used only to refers to a person.

Niemand weiss von ihm (no one knows about him)

There is no gender difference in the use of niemand and its declension is as follows

Nominative: niemand

Accusative: niemanden

Dative: niemandem

Genitive: niemandes

Vocabulary

Federal States of Germany

1. Schleswig-Holstein
2. Mecklenburg-Vorpommern
3. Hamburg
4. Bremen
5. Niedersachsen
6. Sachsen-Anhalt
7. Brandenburg
8. Berlin
9. Nordrhein-Westfalen
10. Rheinland -Pfalz
11. Hessen
12. Thüringen
13. Sachsen
14. Saarland
15. Baden-Wütternberg
16. Bayern