KS3 · German · Year 9
A murder mystery party: relative clauses
Family experiences: relative clauses
Learn it. Recall it. Make it stick.
IllumED Slides
IllumED · 1/8
Your learning goal
I can create adjectives from nouns adding the suffix -los, and I can use relative clauses to give further information about suspects and clues in the context of a murder mystery party.
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A murder mystery party: relative clauses: slides adapted from the imported teaching text; recall questions created from its keywords, learning points and common mistakes. Self-check practice, with no automatic grading or XP. Answers stay on this page and are cleared when you leave.
Original teaching resources
The original illustrated PowerPoint is available as well as the IllumED text slides. It retains the publisher’s design and credits.
Download original PowerPoint ↓What you’ll learn
I can create adjectives from nouns adding the suffix -los, and I can use relative clauses to give further information about suspects and clues in the context of a murder mystery party.
Key learning points
- Adding the suffix -los to German nouns creates adjectives with the English equivalent -less or the meaning 'without'.
- Relative clauses add information about the noun in a main clause without starting another sentence.
- German subject relative clauses start with a relative pronoun, 'der', 'die', 'das', 'die' and end with a verb.
- Relative clauses can be embedded in main clauses, with commas before and after the clause.
Words to know
- suffix -los
- letter string added to the end of many German nouns to create adjectives with the English meaning '-less' or 'without'
- relative clause
- adds information about the noun in the main clause
Common mistakes
You can add the suffix -los to any German noun to make an adjective.
You can't just add -los to any noun to form an adjective. It only works if the result makes real sense - usually where there’s a natural English -less equivalent (like 'hairless', 'hopeless', 'windowless').
For parents, carers and teachers
- Following this lesson, teachers may consider making periodic use of register routines to revisit relative clauses, prompting pupils to create clues to enable a partner to identify specific items from a selection of same-item types, e.g., 'das ist der Hund, der einen Ball hat'.