Texting & dating apps: Sending a first message on a dating app

💬 Starting with auf deinem Profil pushes the verb ist into second place, ahead of ein Hund. German keeps the verb second, whatever comes first.

💬 deiner stands for dein Hund, and the -er ending signals a masculine word like der Hund. For die Katze "the cat", you'd ask ist das deine?.

💬 For a yes/no question, put the verb first: du magst becomes magst du. Swap in any plural: Magst du Katzen? "Do you like cats?"

💬 gern after a verb means "like doing it". There's no separate "like" verb: ich lese gern means "I like reading".

💬 After mit, plural words get an extra -n: Hunde becomes Hunden. Same pattern: mit Freunden "with friends".

💬 spazieren goes to the very end, and extras like mit Hunden slot in before it: ich gehe gern im Park spazieren "I like walking in the park".

💬 In a question, sonst means "else" or "apart from that", not "otherwise". For example, Was noch? "What else?" and sonst noch was? "anything else?" are both used this way.

💬 German has no "-ing" form, so gerade does the job of "I'm doing it right now": ich esse gerade "I'm eating right now". It can also mean "straight", as in geradeaus "straight ahead".

💬 The language is capitalized when used as a noun: ich lerne Deutsch. As a description it is lowercase: deutsches Essen "German food".

🇩🇪 Mentioning you're learning German is a good icebreaker. Many Germans will happily help, though some will switch to English, and you can politely ask them to stay in German.

💬 woher asks "from where", while wo only asks "where". Wo wohnst du? means "Where do you live?"

💬 For countries with die, aus changes it to der: aus der Schweiz "from Switzerland". Cities and most countries just take aus alone.

💬 With seit, German uses the present tense for something still going on. ich wohne seit einem Jahr means "I've been living for a year", not "I live for a year".

💬 spannend literally means "gripping" or "exciting". It's warmer than a polite "interesting" and is also used for a thrilling film.

💬 los alone means "leave" here, with no verb like "go" needed. Same trick: ich muss zur Arbeit "I have to go to work".

💬 morgen lowercase means "tomorrow", but der Morgen means "morning". So morgen früh means "tomorrow morning".

💬 Adding weiter to a verb means "keep doing it": weiterschreiben splits, and weiter goes to the end. Same pattern: wir reden morgen weiter "we'll keep talking tomorrow".

💬 The noch means "for the rest of" the evening, wishing the remaining hours well. Same pattern: Schönen Tag noch! "Have a nice rest of the day!"

💬 "You too" uses dir, not du, because it's short for ich wünsche dir auch "I wish you too". With Sie it becomes Ihnen auch.

💬 bis plus a time makes a goodbye: bis später "see you later", bis Freitag "see you Friday".