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For people: people take the same gender as the person they are describing:
Masculine:
- Months/ days of the week/ cardinal (compass) directions/ seasons always masc.
- Countries: only der Irak, der Iran
Exceptions:
Buchstabe (letter), Hase (hare/ rabbit), Käse (cheese), Kunde (customer), Name
Noun Endings:
- (e)r, -(i)g, -ismus, -ling, -ist (referring to people, Kommunist)
- el, -en, -ich, -and, -ant, -ent, -ier, -or, -us, -ar
Neuter:
- Names of cities/ most countries/ names of metals/ chemical elements
Exceptions:
- das Mädchen (girl), das Auge (eye), das Ende (end), das Wochenende (weekend)
Noun Endings:
- chen, -lein, -um, Ge-, -ment, -ett, -icht, -ma, -sal, -tal
Feminine:
- names of most trees/ most fruits/ most flowers
- Countries: die Schweiz, die Türkei and countries ending in Republik
Noun Endings:
- e, -ei, -heit, -keit, -schaft, -ie, -tät, -ung, -ur, -ion, -enz, -anz
Plural:
- Countries: die Niederlande, die USA/ die Vereinigten Staaten
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Creating Plurals (Nouns)
4. Adding -(e)n
e.g.
- with mostly feminine nouns die Freundin (girlfriend) --> die Freundinnen
- nouns in this group never add an umlaut (girlfriends)
in the plural form die Straße (street) --> die Straßen (streets)
- feminine nouns ending -in, add -nen in die Tür (door) --> die Türen (doors)
plural
5. Adding -s
e.g.
- with nouns of foreign origin, particularly der Job (job) --> die Jobs (jobs)
those ending in vowels. der VW (VW) --> die VWs (VWs)
- with German words ending in a vowel die Mutti (mum) --> die Muttis (mums)
- with abbreviations
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Cases of Articles
Like cases of definite articles, some other words have endings for different genders:
Possessive pronouns take the same endings as the indefinite articles for different cases:
These nouns add -en or -n (add -n if the noun already ends in -e) in every case except the
nominative singular
der Herr, which takes an -n ending in the singular declension forms and -en in plural
das Herz, which is a neuter noun that takes on the masculine -n noun suffixes, except for
in the accusative singular.
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Cases in Sentences with NO PREPOSITIONS
Nominative:
Accusative:
Dative:
- After the following verbs: bringen, geben, haben, kaufen, schicken, sagen, zeigen
Genitive:
- To show possession:
- For proper names (names/ countries/cities) you simply add -s to the proper name
(no apostrophe in German!)
- For anything other than a proper name you use the genetive article with appropriate noun
endings:
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Cases in Sentences WITH PREPOSITIONS
6
Preposition Contraction in Different Cases
Accusative:
Dative:
setzen - to place/ set/ sit down (accusative; the action of placing/ setting/ sitting down)
e.g. Ich setze mich neben das Fräulein
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Personal Pronouns in Different Cases
Personal pronouns cannot exist in the genitive case, as you would then use the
possessive pronoun, e.g. mein/ dein/ sein, etc...
The same rules apply to the personal pronouns as they do to usual objects in sentences.
In the above example, the accusative personal pronoun is “it”, which could be ihn, sie or es
depending on the gender of the noun you are replacing the personal pronoun with.
dat mir dir ihm ihr ihm uns euch ihnen Ihnen
If you are referring to a person, usually when creating a question, you use ʻwerʼ.
The preposition in the sentence governs which form of ʻwerʼ is used.
Forms of wer (who):
e.g. Von wem sprechen Sie?
Nom: Wer (who)
Über wen sprechen Sie?
Acc: Wen (whom)
Wessen Wagen ist das?
Dat: Wem (to whom)
Gen: Wessen (whose)
If you are not talking about a person and are instead talking about an object, in the
question you would use wo- compounds.
e.g. Worüber sprechen Sie? (What are you talking about?)
Worin schwimmt ihr? (What are you swimming in?)
Wovor hat er Angst? (What are you scared of?)
When answering a question, a response could be with a da- compound of the preposition
in the question
e.g. Denkst du an die Ferien? Nein, ich denke nicht daran
Bist du gegen den Plan? Ja, ich bin dagegen