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Lesson 13: Nouns

Let's dig deeper into the German nouns in lesson 13. The use is more or less the same as in English. However, the gender and the plural are different in German. The gender can be seen with the articles, unlike English, and there are many types of the plural. In English, it's almost always -s. This lesson will help you determine the gender and the plural.

In German, there are three genders: männlich (der), weiblich (die) and sächlich (das). That's male, feminine and neutral/asexual. To help you with finding the gender, let's see some categories of nouns who usually take a particular gender.

Nouns that already have a 'natural' gender, usually take it over. It's like that for humans and animals. Some examples:

Der Mann
Die Frau
Der Student
Die Studentin
Der Pole
Die Polin
Der Kater (male cat)
Die Katze (female cat)

Some male nouns indicate both male and female: der Mensch is an example.

Other nouns in the male form:

days, months, weather (e.g. der Montag)
nouns ending with -el, -en, -er (der Fehler)
most of the ones ending with -ant, -ich, -ig (der Honig)

Other nouns in the female form:

figures (e.g. die Eins)
nouns ending with -ei, -keit, -heit, -schaft, -ung, -ion, -ät, -ik, -ur, -enz, -ie (e.g. die Universität, die Wohnung)
most of the ones ending with -e (e.g. die Frage)

Other nouns in the neutral form:

most nouns ending with -um, -tum, -ment (das Appartement)
nouns starting with ge and ending with -e (das Gemüse)

Mind that there are a few exceptions. The plural now. Let's keep it short: they are -e, -er, (e)n, -s, ¨, ¨+er or nothing. Remember that 'die' is always the article in the plural Nominativ.

Words: