Language Course From Wikibooks, the open-content textbooks collection Contents

Parts of Speech and Word Order
Sentences are composed of parts that perform specific functions. You have been introduced to most 
(but not all) the major parts of speech: pronouns/nouns, verbs, and adjectives; and how these are 
expressed in German compared with English. Consider the following:
Ich brauche Wurst und Käse
I (pronoun as subject) need (verb) sausage and cheese (nouns as direct objects) 
Haben sie zu viel Arbeit?
Have (verb) they (pronoun subject) too much (adjectives) work (noun direct object)? 
Word order in a simple sentence follows that used in English. Subject and verb are reversed to form a 
question. In English, but not in German, the question sentence could also be stated (and, in fact, occurs 
more often in the US) as 'Do they have too much work?'
Nouns
Nouns are words that typically occur in sentences as either subjects (performers of some action) or 
objects (recipients of some action). Most nouns are the name of either a "person, place, or thing" and, 
in German, are always capitalized. Every noun in German has an "assigned" gender (masculine, 
feminine, neuter), and we learn each noun with its nominative case, definite article (
der
, 
die
, 
das
, 
respectively) in order to also learn that gender. Thus, a 
Vokabeln
section for nouns is presented thusly:
der Anhang, die Anhänge appendix, appendices (singular and plural)
die Brücke bridge
der Freund, die Freunde friend, friends (singular and plural)
das Gespräch, die Gespräche conversation, conversations
die Gram
mat
ik grammar (note irregular stress) 
die Lek
tion
lesson (note irregular stress)

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die Straße street
Section 2.02 ~ Zürich, Switzerland