KS3 · German · Year 8
What I prefer to do and why: 'weil', 'denn' and 'lieber'
What we like and prefer doing: separable verbs, 'gern' and 'lieber'
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IllumED Slides
IllumED · 1/10
Your learning goal
I can understand about and write what I love and prefer doing, extending my sentences to give reasons for my preferences.
1 of 10
What I prefer to do and why: 'weil', 'denn' and 'lieber': 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 understand about and write what I love and prefer doing, extending my sentences to give reasons for my preferences.
Key learning points
- The 's' in [sp] and [st] sounds like [sch] at the start of a word, as part of a compound noun or after a prefix.
- The adverb 'lieber' means 'rather', and is used to say 'prefer' with a verb. The verb ‘lieben’ means ‘to love, loving’.
- The conjunctions 'denn' and 'weil' both mean 'because'.
- The verb follows the subject when using 'denn'. This is standard word order or word order 1 (WO1).
- The verb moves to the end of the clause when using 'weil'. This is word order 3 (WO3).
Words to know
- lieber
- adverb meaning ‘rather’, used after a verb to mean ‘prefer’
- denn
- conjunction meaning 'because' after which word order 1 (WO1) follows
- weil
- conjunction meaning 'because' followed by word order 3 (WO3)
Common mistakes
Word order in German remains the same as English after ‘weil’ ('because').
When using ‘weil’ to give a reason, the verb moves to the end of the clause, e.g., ‘ich spiele gern Fußball, weil es Spaß macht'.
For parents, carers and teachers
- Use transition moments, when handing out resources or changing activities, to ask opinion-based questions in German (e.g., 'Siehst du lieber Filme oder liest du lieber Bücher?', 'Warum?'). These low-stakes moments are ideal for practising preferences and justifications, helping pupils build fluency.