This website moved to: learnanylanguages.com: Learn German lesson 15: 'a', no and the possessive pronoun

Next lesson: Modal verbs and the future
Previous lesson: to have and the Akkusativ

Lesson 15: 'a', no and the possessive pronoun

'A' is the indefinite article in English (we've seen the definite one here). Its conjugation is similar as that of 'no' and of the possessive pronoun, so that's why we're going to see them together.

How do you say 'a man', 'a woman' and 'a child' in German in the Nominativ case? Well, it's like this:

ein Mann
eine Frau
ein Kind

The Akkusativ changes only the male form, similarly to the definite article's Akkusativ:

einen Mann
eine Frau
ein Kind

To say 'no man' and 'no woman', 'no child', 'no men' it's like this in the Nominativ:

kein Mann
keine Frau
kein Kind
keine Männer

Yes, it's exactly the same as for 'ein.' However, mind the plural (for ein there's no plural) is always keine. The Akkusativ of kein Mann is keinen Mann, just the same as for ein.

The possessive is conjugated just the same. The roots are: mein, dein, sein, ihr, sein, unser, euer, ihr and Ihr. So here are the examples in the Nominativ:

mein Mann (my husband)
deine Frau (your wife)
sein Kind (his child)
ihre Männer (her men)
seine Frauen (its women)
unsere Kinder (our children)
euer Mann (your husband)
ihre Frau (their woman)
Ihr Kind (your child) polite

That's quite a lot to take. So the roots refer to the person that owns, and the endings refers to what that person owns. They take the same endings of (k)ein. Mind as well that 'ihr' is you in the plural, but also the possessive 'her' and 'their'. Ihr with capital is your in the politeness form. One last remark: euer becomes eure with an e.

Words