The German articles must be declined based on the gender of the noun and the cases. Don’t worry, you got this. Read this short article and then do the exercise. And you will see that you will already have a better understanding of this works. No worries, let me help you to understand the German grammar.
The German articles are:
die = feminine
Example: die Frau
Die Frau kauft einen Kaffee.
der = masculine
Example: der Mann
Der Mann spielt Fußball.
das = neutral
Example: das Kind
Das Kind geht zur Schule.
How do I know if a noun is masculine, feminine or neutral?
Well in short, you don’t. But there are some groups of nouns that almost always follow a certain gender.
Note: There are always exceptions.
Male nouns
Days, Months and seasons
der Montag (Monday), der Mai (May), der Sommer, der Monat (month), der Morgen (morning)
Cars
der BMW, der Skoda, der Ford, der Ferrari, der Audi, der VW, der Mercedes
Male noun endings
-ant, -ast, -ich, -ig, -ling, -or, -us
Examples: der Praktikant, der Lehrling, der Kontrast
Female nouns
Female noun endings
-a, -anz, -enz, -ei, -ie, -heit, -keit, -ik, -sion, -tion, -sis, -tät, -ung, -ur, schaft
Examples: die Allianz, die Kundschaft, die Aktion, die Universität, die Wahrscheinlichkeit
neutral nouns
Neutral noun endings
-chen, -lein, -icht, -il, -it, -ma, -ment, -tel, -tum, -um
Examples: das Mädchen, das Klima, das Experiment
The most difficult is obviously to know the gender of the noun. To find out the cases is also not easy but there are more rules involved. Finding out the gender of the noun is almost like guessing. How do you know that dog is “der Hund” in German. So the answer is, practice practice practice.
Exercise
Use capital letter in the beginning of the sentence.
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