Der die das.... which noun is what? (level: A1)

Welcome to another post. We are going back to the early A1 days of articles and some tips to figure out which is which. So sit back and let's talk about der, die das.

If you are a native English speaker, this is a bit of a new idea, but if you have experience with a language like Spanish, you might be more familiar with the idea. In language, we have nouns, which are persons, places, things, or ideas. Here is a list of a few:
  • cat
  • apple
  • country
  • freedom
In English, when you make a sentence, with one of these nouns, you will need to at times place "the" or "a/an" in front like this:
  • the cat, a cat
  • the apple, an apple
  • the country, a country
  • the freedom, a freedom
For English, that's the basic idea. The is used for a specific noun (definite article), and a/an is used for a non-specific or general noun (indefinite article). In German, it's a bit more complicated, because each noun has a gender: masculine, feminine or neutral. So we need to memorize what each noun is of the three:
  • cat > die Katze (feminine)  German nouns are capitalized.
  • apple > der Apple (masculine)
  • country > das Land (neutral)
  • freedom > die Freiheit (feminine)
Usually if you are asking about the gender of a word, someone will tell you either der, die or das as an answer. Though, be careful, they are meaning the gender of the word, but it might look different in a sentence. (You will find out later that German has something called cases where the article will change depending on which of the 4 cases you use.)

Now that you know German has 3 genders to learn with every word, you might feel overwhelmed like many others, including myself. But there are some tips that will help you determine the gender of nouns. Here are some tips that helped me:

Masculine Words (der)

  • Words ending in:
    • -m: Baum, Arm, Film
    • -er: Teller, Finger, Bäcker
    • -el: Geldbeutel, Nagel, Hobel
    • -en: Karpfen, Regen, Wagen 
    • -ich: Teppich, Rettich, Kranich
    • -ig: Klettersteig, Honig, König 
    • -ling: Liebling, Lehrling, Sonderling
  • Seasons, Months, Weeks: Sommer, Juni, Mittwoch
  • Male people: Weihnachtsmann, Onkel, Jäger

Feminine Words (die)

  • Words ending in:
    • -e: Herberge, Lehre, Orange 
    • -t: Macht, Nacht, Fahrt
    • -in: Oberin, Freundin, Chemikerin
    • -ei: Bäckerei, Angeberei, Goldmacherei
    • -keit: Erfolglosigkeit, Billigkeit, Aufmerksamkeit
    • -heit: Einheit, Allheit, Fahreinheit
    • -schaft: Eigenschaft, Charaktereigenschaft, Amigowirtschaft 
    • -ung: Tagesordnung, Abflußleitung, Ausbildung
    • -ik: Musik, Artistik, Ethik
    • -a: Krypta, Pasta, Pizza
    • -ion: Inhalation, Explosion, Reflexion
    • -tät: Dualität, Komplexität, Universität
    • -ur: Natur, Beinrasur, Faktur
    • -nz: Absenz, Dependenz, Konferenz
  • Female people: Krankenschwester, Leherin, Frau

Neutral Words (das)

  • Words ending in:
    • -nis: Ergebnis, Geheimnis, Hindernis
    • -lein: Bäuerlein, Fräulein, Küchlein
    • -chen: Mädchen, Brötchen, Kaninchen
    • -sal: Rinnsal, Schicksal, Labsal
    • -tum: Heiligtum, Datum, Tyrannentum
    • -ment: Bildelement, Document, Instrument
    • -um: Museum, Dekorum, Praktikum
    • -et, ett: Paket, Bett, Fett
    • -ma: Thema, Klima, Koma
    • -em: Problem, System, Exanthem
    • -tel: Lebensmittel, Viertel, Fünftel
  • Words that start with Ge-: Gesicht, Geld, Gericht
  • Words with no plural: Obst, Essen, Glück
  • Metals: Kupfer, Titan, Gold
  • Words from other countries: Hotel, Taxi, Facebook, Abonnement
And so I will end there for today. Again, this isn't 100%, but it helps out a lot, especially when you're hearing a word for the first time. And don't hesitate to ask a native German speaking friend! For the list of words I added today, I found the online dictionary https://www.dict.cc/ extremely helpful as it allowed you to search for word endings with the asterisk symbol(*). As an example, for -ion I would type *ion to get the endings.

German Exercise for the Week

Der, die, das Übung (Level: A1)

In this exercise, you'll find the correct gender articles for the words.

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