KS3 · German · Year 9
What is important in life: infinitive uses, verbs capitalised as nouns
Desires, plans and priorities: 'möcht-' future and use of infinitive
Learn it. Recall it. Make it stick.
IllumED Slides
IllumED · 1/8
Your learning goal
I can use infinitives as nouns and know when to use 'zu' with infinitives in the context of important relationships with others.
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What is important in life: infinitive uses, verbs capitalised as nouns: 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 use infinitives as nouns and know when to use 'zu' with infinitives in the context of important relationships with others.
Key learning points
- Using a range of strategies, e.g., synonym spotting, can help deepen vocabulary knowledge.
- Using surrounding words to help infer meaning of unfamiliar words is a key strategy in reading comprehension.
- Infinitive verbs can be changed into nouns by capitalising the first letter of the infinitive.
- Infinitive nouns are always neuter; English equivalents end in -ing, e.g., 'das Schwimmen' - 'swimming'.
- In addition to modal verbs and 'werden', a few other verbs don’t need 'zu' before the infinitive in two-verb sentences.
Words to know
- infer
- use of knowledge of the surrounding words in a sentence to work out the meaning of an unfamiliar word
Common mistakes
Infinitives are always verbs.
Many infinitives can be used as nouns. In German, infinitive nouns start with a capital letter, are always neuter, can be used with or without 'das' & are typically translated into English with the gerund -ing, e.g., '(das) Schwimmen' - 'swimmming'.
For parents, carers and teachers
- Teachers may wish to give students opportunities to explore synonyms more widely in the first cycle of the lesson, as a means of supporting vocabulary recall.