Here’s just a brief example of the variety of content you’ll find on FluentU: Watching a fun video, but having trouble understanding it? If you can’t communicate in a language, then you don’t really speak it, do you? That’s what I always emphasize with my students, that they shouldn’t make a fuss when they accidentally used the wrong article because I was still able to understand perfectly well what they were trying to say. When you ride your bike over a rock: Ich fahre über den Stein. Although this table is not exhaustive or to be taken as 100% correct all of the time, it will work for you 9 out of 10 times for basically half the nouns in the German language. I’ve even heard of truly dedicated German learners posting sticky notes all over their homes, labeling every individual object with its German name. For nouns that have a biological gender, this is easy. But let’s not be intimidated; we can crack this code. Ifyou’re not familiar with that then please check the German Casespage beforeproceeding to this page. Introduction In German language, there are three definite articles for nouns in singular: der for masculine nouns, die for feminine nouns and das neutral nouns. Well in German, you don’t do that (although it’s becoming more common as English creeps into the culture). In English, you would use the same definite article “the” in all three sentences. Pretty cool, right? Remember that das Mädchen is neuter. Der Junge Der Junge trinkt. Swipe left or right to see more examples of the word you’re on. Clozemaster is great for this type of immersion. Again, notice that the noun itself rarely changes – it only picks up an ending in three places. Thanks. Start using FluentU on the website with your computer or tablet or, better yet, download the FluentU app from the iTunes store or Google Play store. when studying or taking notes on new vocabulary always say, Finally, as someone who has been speaking German all their life and teaching it for 10 years, I would like to offer the following little nugget of wisdom with regard to German articles –. After reading this I came to know what is what. What’s this “grammatical gender” thing, you ask? Whether to use a definite or an indefinite article in German is very similar to how you would use them in English. This table gives endings for the definite article, equivalent to English the. A noun is a part of speech that denotes a person, animal, place, thing, or idea. We hate SPAM and promise to keep your email address safe, Get regular language learning tips, resources and updates, starting with the "Complete Guide to Foreign Language Immersion" e-book, Sign up for our weekly blog newsletter for a chance to win a free FluentU Plus subscription (value $240). Just put the article on there as well. So let’s start with some straightforward rules, how does that sound? Like with anything in life, learning articles takes a lot of patience and time. The best thing you can do is to immerse yourself as much as possible in the German language and culture – to listen to lots of German music, watch German TV shows (there are lots of options for free online) and just try to use it as often as you can. The best you can do to improve your language skills is take the German you know now, at this very moment, and go out into the world (or some online language learning community, for example) and USE IT. And using the wrong article will generally not interfere with your communication or the message you are trying to convey. For example, the nominative/accusative cases for feminine and plural nouns are the same, and the same goes for the masculine and the neuter dative and genitive. In the nominative case, "der" precedes masculine nouns, "die" precedes feminine and plural nouns, and "das" precedes neutral nouns. And as long as I can do that, they are doing awesome. It doesn’t matter if that, you want is a specific chair, book or apartment. Accordingly, German uses definite articles more often than English does. you know it’s a diminutive and therefore a neuter. I learned more about gender, articles and nouns from this article than I had learned from several other sources. But, apart from grouping the article forms according to their similarity, there is one other thing you can do to make your life easier. In German “chair” is masculine (, , irrespective of the singular gender, so, If you’re a German beginner, this table might seem quite daunting. Your email address will not be published. So it is up to you to in… “Car” is das Auto, so that stays the same. FluentU helps you get comfortable with everyday German by combining all the benefits of complete immersion and native-level conversations with interactive subtitles. Meine Mutter ist Architektin. You will, without thinking twice, be able to say, “I want the chair with the fluffy pink unicorns on it.”, “I want the book that the cute guy with the blue shirt is reading.”, “I want the apartment with the stunning rooftop view.”. The best thing you can do is to immerse yourself as much as possible in the German language and culture – to listen to lots of German music, watch German TV shows (there are lots of options for free online) and just try to use it as often as you can. Like with anything in life, learning articles takes a lot of patience and time. The teacherwent to school, “The teacher” is the subject of the sentence, and therefore “Theteacher” is nominative. But “chair” is der Stuhl, so in this case, where something is being done to the chair (it’s being run over), it becomes den Stuhl in the Akkusativ case. If you sit down at table in a restaurant, tell yourself what’s on the table in front of you: Die Serviette ist auf dem Tisch. Rather, type in “the horse” so you get das Pferd. *Die Mädchen hat mir mein Handy gestohlen. The article is obvious and so helpful. You’ve got the masculine der, the feminine die, the neutral das and the plural die. So, those phrases become die Jacke des Tom and der Schuh des Jennifer, respectively. It didn’t matter that they used the feminine article instead of the neuter, I could still understand what they were trying to say. In English, life is easy; if you know what you want, you just use THE, and if you don’t know what you want, you use A/AN. Exercises. German, however, often still needs the noun articles in order to clarify the sentence syntax. The article chart is what I have been looking for all this while. Ich bin glücklich. You’re talking about the passage of time, so we’re in the Dativ case. In fact, I would dare say that it’s much more important to make lots and lots of mistakes, have someone correct you and then learn from these mistakes, than to try to avoid them by not speaking at all. In the Akkusativ case, the articles for nouns change: Der becomes den. 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