GRIMMATIK: German grammar through the magic of the brothers Grimm fairy tales and the Online Grimm corpus

The rationale for GRIMMATIK (coined from the brothers Grimm name and the German word for grammar 'Grammatik;' textbook forthcoming) is to offer a learner-oriented, research-based German grammar to intermediate and advanced students of German. Bringing together German grammar and the brothers Grimm fairy tales offers a different approach to learning and reviewing German grammar and it introduces students to the original German texts of the world-known and beloved fairy tales which were first published in 1812 as Kinder- und Hausmarchen (KHM). The GRIMMATIK method addresses a variety of grammatical elements in the analysis of selected brothers Grimm fairy tales. It is the student who finally constructs a reasonably simple form of German grammar, consecutively isolating the parts of speech, phrases, and sentence structure. Recognition of language patterns leads to paradigm segmentation and classification and eventually to internalisations of language rules and the acquisition of grammatical competence. This paper presents methods for using the Online Grimm corpus for German grammar learning.