This lesson was a bit easier to go through, but there was a lot of new information. German, like most languages, has 3 genders — male, female, and neuter.
What is a noun in German?
The simplest explanation is this: anything that can start with an “a” or “the” is a noun. Nouns in German always belong to one of the 3 genders, and the plural version of a noun is always feminine.
Note: All nouns in German are capitalized.
The 3 Genders
The associated definete articles become easy to remember once you realize that they sound almost similar for each gender!
Masculine
Definite articles: he and the, or er and der!
Examples
- The dog ate the cake
- In Spoken German (expressed in the Present Perfect form)
- (expressed as) the dog has eaten the cake -> der hund hat den kuchen gefressen
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A lot to learn when I’m thinking of the sentences myself!
Firstly, realized that there are 2 words to represent the act of eating — essen and fressen. essen I already knew of, but fressen is used when describing the act of eating done by animals.
Also, was remined that the masculine the (as in, the cake) in its accusative case is not der but den
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- (expressed as) the dog has eaten the cake -> der hund hat den kuchen gefressen
- In Written German
- (expressed as) the dog ate the cake -> der Hund fraß den Kuchen
- In Spoken German (expressed in the Present Perfect form)
Feminine
Definite articles: she and the, or sie and die!
Examples
- The woman lives in the haus
- Die Frau wohnt in dem Haus OR (contracted as) Die Frau wohnt in dem Haus
- German actually has two verbs that translate to “to live,” each with a distinct focus:
- wohnen: To reside or dwell in a specific place (a house, flat, street, or city).
- leben: To be biologically alive, or to live in a broader, existential sense. It carries a broader sense of living than wohnen
- German actually has two verbs that translate to “to live,” each with a distinct focus:
- Die Frau wohnt in dem Haus OR (contracted as) Die Frau wohnt in dem Haus
Neuter
Definite articles: it and the, or es and das!
Examples
- The child is roaming in the garden
- das Kind streift in dem Garten umher OR (contracted as) dsa Kind streift im Garten umher
Vocabulary
- blouse -> Bluse
- children -> Kinder
- woman -> Frau
- man -> Mann
- house -> Haus