Answer Question
Contractions
I have been learning about use of contractions in my lessons, e.g. zu der = zur, zu dem = zum, in dem = im, in das = ins. I have notice that if I have the gender of the object of the preposition down pat, no problem in constructing the sentence using the contraction but if I get to the preposition and then have to pause and think about the noun and its gender I loose the contraction. " to the restaurant," "im restaurant" but "to the church," uh ? m/f/n ?, " zu der Kirche," instead of "zur Kirche". If I do to this when speaking to a native German speaker will I sound more or less normal or will I sound like the German version of a hill-billy? Just curious.