Creatures Caves

Melody, I think I can help you, but I've probably been beaten to the point. From what I understand from Pappy, and from a friend of mine in the real world, German uses multiple versions of a word, mainly nouns.
The versions depend on if it's feminine, masculine, or gender neutral. It's similar to how in Spanish and French, you have Le, La, Les, Las, etc., when you have the word "the", when using it for something, based upon it's gender affiliation.
So basically, neu and neue, are gender affiliated, like the german versions, french versions, and spanish versions of the word "the".
From what I understand, I believe most german words have multiple forms based on gender, nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, etc. I didn't know there was a nominative form, or the others you listed, so that bit is new to me.

I'm sorry, but I can't answer the last two, as my knowledge of german is limited. I do know the language is, like most European languages, one of the romance languages. I also hear it is very guttural. Not to mention, from what I've been told, when you translate German to English, or vice versa, no matter which language you view it from, you're going to notice the grammar has been butchered (minor butchering at best, I'm guessing), and it looks so wrong, especially if you translate it back. Along with that, I hear that the order of the words (basically this is mainly how the grammar is butchered, I guess) is often flip flopped, randomized, or something along those lines, and that there are conjunctions of all different sorts, where words are just spliced together, possibly not even the conjunctions you'd think (it's, I'm, are the ones I guess people think of, but along with that, I hear they make conjunctions out of normal or random words).
Then again, this is all what I've heard a little while back, along with my own speculation and guessing.

An example of how it changes when translated, your original sentence, equals this when translated to English (using Yahoo's Babel Fish):
the dog beiBt the man
Which correctly translates to (babel fish made an error I believe):
The dog bit the man.

I think with punctuation, you just do what comes naturally. I don't know if there are any special rules in German, but I assume it's like in English:
. - Ends normal sentences. Used in statements, and other things. It also seperates two complete ideas/sentences. In the case of a person using short sentences that could be re-arranged or combined to form a complete idea, the periods are often like commas, ex:
During 1912, a battle was fought. It's often thought of as a horrible battle. Many people died. 342 innocent people died. 638 soldiers died from both sides. The total was 980 deaths. Survivors did not recover easy. Many survivors suffered from mental problems. Survivors often suffered from trauma, or paranoia.
A better paragraph, where the sentences are complete ideas:
During 1912, a horrible battle was fought. 980 total people died, 342 being innocent, and 638 were soldiers. Survivors had trouble recovering, often suffering from mental problems, such as paranoia, or trauma.
?-Used in inquisitive sentences. One would end a question correctly with this. Ex(Wrong):
What time is it in Japan.
EX(Right):
What time is it in Japan?
!-Used in sentences with strong feelings. Usually used to express strong opinions, emotions, and otherwise. It's also used to describe fast things, or instant things.
EX(Wrong):
The cat ate the fish flavored meow mix!
EX(Right):
Suddenly, everybody had disappeared!
I hate you all so much!

So I guess that's it. Right now I'm reading the other posts, so, what Papriko said is what I heard from Papriko, and my friend, well, only certain parts, the other bits I haven't really heard about. One thing I've never heard is the ae, oe, and ue, which, explain things for me a bunch.

Good luck Melody!