“A” – German Vocabulary and Idioms – English Explanation

In this topic we want to talk about the letter “Aa” in German. You may think that it is a simple letter in the alphabet. But we want to show you that there are several German Vocabulary and Idioms that include the single letter “A”.

Gender / Article

As you may know, the German nouns have gender / article. The article of the letter “A” is the neutral article “das”. So that when you want to be definite while talking about “A”, you would say “das A”.

For your information: all the alphabet letters in German are of one gender. So that you do not need to worry about the different articles. The definite article for all of the German alphabet letters is neutral = “das”.

It is worth mentioning that the definite article for alphabet letters are not widely used. We use them in special cases when referring to a particular “A” in the spelling or other situations where we need a definite article for a letter. For instance you need to know the gender of the letters mostly for adjective declension or other specific cases.

Plural

The letters usually do not have a plural form, which means it may not happen that we use plural form for a single alphabet letter. But in colloquial terms you can add -s to the letters in German to make the plural forms = “die As”

Meaning

1st

The first letter of alphabet.

ein großes A

a capital A

ein kleines a

a small a

2nd

The second meaning refers to the usage of this letter as a technical term in music. Which means the sixth note of the C major scale.

A-Dur

A major

a-Moll

A minor

Idioms / Phrases

das A und O

Meaning: The most important thing. Note that this idiom is used along with genitive or the preposition von.

Das A und O des Themas ist Geld.

The alpha and omega of the topic is money.

Das A und O vom Thema ist Geld.

The alpha and omega of the topic is money.

von A bis Z

Meaning: From start to finish / completely.

Wir haben alles von A bis Z geplant.

We planned everything completely.

Also visit gänzlich that is a synonymous with this idiom.

Wer A sagt, muss auch B sagen

Meaning: If you start something, you must finish it.

Ich wollte das Projekt absagen, aber ein Freund hat mir gesagt: Mach das nicht! Wer A sagt, muss auch B sagen.

I wanted to cancel the project, but a friend told me: “Don’t do it! If you’ve come this far, you have to see it through.”

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