German nouns

German noun is a fundamental part of speech , occurring in sentences in two different ways : as subjects (performers of action), or objects (recipients of action) . As a generality, a noun is the name of a “person, place, or thing”. Nouns are classified into proper nouns (e.g. “Janet”), common nouns (e.g. “girl”), and pronouns (e.g. “she” and “which”) . A proper noun (also called proper name) is a noun which denotes a unique entity .

The meaning of a proper noun , outside of what it references , is frequently arbitrary or irrelevant (for example, someone might be named Tiger Smith despite being neither a tiger nor a smith) . Because of this , they are often not translated between languages , although they may be transliterated — for example , the German surname “Knödel” becomes “Knoedel” in English , as opposed to “Dumpling” . Proper nouns are capitalized in English and all other languages that use the Latin alphabet ; this is one way to recognize them . However , in German both proper and common nouns are capitalized .

Gender of German Nouns

We have seen evidence of word gender in the pronouns we have been enountering ; notably ‘he’, ‘she’, and ‘it’ in English and er, sie, and es in German . Just like many other languages (but not English) , German has genders for nouns as well . Noun gender is indicated by the definite article , which should always be learned as part of the noun . For this reason , nouns presented in each lesson’s vocabulary include the gender appropriate definite article .

Definite Articles

The definite article is equivalent to an English ‘the’ , and the three basic gender forms of definite articles in German are as follows :

To say ‘the book’ in German, you would say das Buch , because Buch is a neuter noun . And to say ‘the man’ in German, you would say der Mann, because Mann is a masculine noun . To say ‘the woman’ in German, you would say die Frau , because Frau is a feminine noun .

Noun gender does not always derive from actual gender where gender might be applicable . For example, ‘the boy’ is der Junge (masculine) ; but ‘the girl’ is das Mädchen (neuter) . Also , nouns that have no inherent gender are not necessarily neuter . From this lesson : ‘the watch or time piece’ is die Uhr (‘feminine’) .

Because German is generally more structured than English , it is important when learning German nouns to always learn them with their gender correct definite article ; and in the vocabulary nouns are always given with their associated definite article . That is, you must memorize the word for ‘book’ in German as das Buch, not simply Buch . Not just definite articles , but indefinite articles and adjectives have endings that must match the gender of the noun they precede . Using the wrong gender can alter the meaning of a German sentence , so in forming a proper sentence with Buch, you will need to known that it is a neuter noun .

Indefinite Articles

in addition to the definite articles—”the” in English and der-words in German—discussed above , both languages have indefinite articles . Indefinite articles precede nouns in the same way that definite articles do , but convey a general or indefinite sense . These are “a” or “an” in English . Thus, ‘the book’ or das Buch refers to a definite or specific book, whereas ‘a book’ or ein Buch is indefinite about which book is referred to . Indefinite articles also have gender as shown here :

Here are some examples of indefinite articles (underlined) used in German sentences :

Why , you ask , are there words like einen in some sentences above—a spelling that does not appear in the gender table ? The tables for both the definite and indefinite articles above are simplified at this stage , giving only articles in the nominative case (applied to words that are subjects of verbs) .