L1: Grammar 2

A noun is probably the most basic part of speech. It is either a person, place, or thing. Nouns are always capitalized in German, unlike in English. In German as in some other languages, nouns have gender. Gender is a property of a noun. A noun's gender modifies the ending that the words that describe it will have. There are three genders for German nouns. They are masculine, feminine, and neuter. Masculine nouns can be thought of as "male" nouns. Feminine, therefore, can likewise be thought of as "female" nouns. Neuter is neither masculine nor feminine but a gender of its own. These three genders determine, along with case and other attributes we will learn about later, affect the endings on the words describing them.

In front of each of the nouns in the table above, you will find an article. There are both definite articles, like English "the", and indefinite articles, as in the English "a" or "an". The articles "der", "die", "das", and "die" are all definite articles. They can be translated into English as "the". Notice how a different article is used for each gender. Masculine nouns always use "der", feminine nouns take "die", and neuter nouns "das". Plural nouns, which we will discuss later, always take "die". Aside from the definite articles, there are also indefinite articles. These are "ein" and "eine". "ein" is used for masculine and neuter nouns. "eine" is used for feminine nouns. Plural nouns never take an indefinite article. Because an indefinite article means "a" or "an", you cannot use it with a word that means more than one of something. This would be like saying "a women".

Another important part of using nouns is knowing how to put them into the plural. In English an example is going from "the man" to "the men". In other words, forming a plural is putting the word into a form so that you know it is talking about more than one of the object. In German, there are many ways a plural can be formed and it is arbitrary for each word. Therefore, the formation of plurals must be memorized.

In the above table, I have provided the method of formation of the plurals of German nouns. When you look up a German noun in the dictionary, first of all, it will be in the nominative case. We haven't covered case but we will in an upcoming lesson. First, the noun will be listed in the dictionary, followed by a symbol for its method of forming the plural, and then it's definite article for the gender. Sometimes, this is ommited and it is replaced by a "m", "f", or "n". Also, the dictionary will usually list the part of speech with a symbol. The important part is that you are able to form the German plurals as they are not always given and you will have to be able to form them yourself. Do not expect to know the above words, they are samples.