TCF Journey - Week 1: Getting Started

mohsen.mohammadi.se@gmail.com (Coffee Coded) — Sat, 12 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Starting my preparation for the TCF (Test de Connaissance du Français) exam. My goal is to achieve a B2 level within 3 months.

Initial Assessment

Took a practice test to establish baseline:

Listening: A2 level
Reading: B1 level
Grammar: A2 level

Study Plan

Daily practice (2 hours minimum)
Focus areas: Grammar fundamentals and listening comprehension
Resources: Using TV5Monde and RFI podcasts

This Week’s Goals

Complete present tense conjugation review
Listen to 30 minutes of French content daily
Learn 50 new vocabulary words

Progress updates to follow each week!

A Practical Guide to German Cases: Nominative and Accusative

mohsen.mohammadi.se@gmail.com (Coffee Coded) — Sat, 18 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000

One of the biggest hurdles for English speakers learning German is the case system. In English, we mostly care about word order. In German, the function of a noun in a sentence changes its article (and sometimes its ending).

Let’s start with the two most common cases.

Nominative (Nominativ)

The nominative case is for the subject of the sentence—the person or thing doing the action.

Der Hund beißt den Mann. (The dog bites the man.)
Die Frau liest ein Buch. (The woman is reading a book.)

If you ask “Who is doing the action?”, the answer is in the nominative case.

Accusative (Akkusativ)

The accusative case is for the direct object—the person or thing receiving the action.

Der Hund beißt den Mann. (The dog bites the man.)
Die Frau liest ein Buch. (The woman is reading a book.)

Notice that the masculine article changes from der (nominative) to den (accusative). This is the most visible change and a key signal to watch for. The feminine (die) and neuter (das) articles remain the same between these two cases.

Case	Masculine	Feminine	Neuter
Nominativ	der	die	das
Akkusativ	den	die	das

The key is to stop thinking about “the” as a single word and start thinking about the role each noun plays in the sentence. It takes practice, but it’s the foundation of speaking German correctly.