You betcha! ❚❚, die Klinik (the clinic), Here are some examples of German compound nouns. (2) Nouns are capitalized, like proper names in English: Freund, Stadt, Ball, Freiheit. die Intelligenz (the intelligence), (What kind of apples do you like?). There is so much grammarspeak lingo that gets thrown at you, and articles is one of many examples. On a very basic level, definite articles are the different ways (<– there are 6) of saying ‘the’ in German and indefinite articles are the (also 6) different ways to say ‘a/an’ in German. (I really like your bag.). For example, Switzerland is feminine die Schweiz) and the USA is plural (die USA). WOW, German nouns are pretty tricky! That means: They are written with an initial capital letter. Well, all nouns play particular roles in a given sentence. So, that means that both the gender of the noun AND the role it’s playing in the sentence (i.e. Human beings and animals have natural genders so their genders are not hard to learn, but there are always exceptions like in any other language. (The honey is always brown. As you can easily see looking at the masculine, feminine and neuter article “der”, “die”, and “das”, we have masculine, feminine and neuter nouns. Finally, we reached a rather funny part of German nouns – the compound nouns! You have to look at the word for âtheâ that comes before the noun. Want to see a cool party trick? As with family and friend nouns, occupations have a masculine and feminine form. (Download). das Jahr + -es- + die Zeit = die Jahreszeit season (time of the year) frei + die Zeit = die Freizeit free time. The nominative case—in both German and in English—is the subject of a sentence. Learn common German nouns in more depth with FluentU. ), Haben Sie meine Krawatte gesehen? How to order food in a restaurant by saying "I would like...", What "cases" are, why you need them, and how to use the. If you liked this post, something tells me that you'll love FluentU, the best way to learn German with real-world videos. die Datei (the data), Learn to use nouns and articles in singular and plural as well as in nominative, accusative, dative and genitive. Click here to get a copy. In German, there are four types of roles and they are the 4 German cases (nominative, accusative, dative, genitive). But most of the time, the -s will do the job. vielleicht (may be) Take nouns. You can combine nouns to form one single long word like the example below. Feelin’ pretty good. That is not good. genau (exactly) Nouns are used a lot in German, second only to verbs. zwischen + die Zeit = die Zwischenzeit meantime, interim (the time in between) der Abend + die Schule = die Abendschule night school. ❚❚, die Station (the station), Der König ist sehr reich. Here are some of the ways that plurals are formed in German: Take a look at these examples, and you'll see how truly unpredictable it is: (Remember that all plurals will use die as the "the" word. Plug them into sentences. die Botschaft (the embassy, the message) , die deutsche Botschaft in London (The German Embassy in London), Examples: der Rotor (the rotor), der Liebling (the favorite), der Egoismus (the egotism), der Honig (the honey), Words ending in -ung, -keit, -schaft, –tät, -ik, -tion, -heit, or -ei are feminine. ❚❚, das Zeugnis (the certificate, report), Write down the words you think are nouns and then click the sentence to check your answer. Jump to an in-depth noun guide orcontinue reading to see summaries of each. Ooh, this tricky little menace! And that’s a pretty big deal if you want to say anything beyond hallo! Mostly, all singular forms for feminine nouns are the same! If the nominative case is making sense to you, then it’s time to move on to the accusative case so that you can start to understand/say/write more complex German sentences. Enjoy the rest of the lesson! –ung (corresponds to -tion/-ing) This ending is used if you want to change a verb into a noun. German noun genders. There are words that are often put in front of nouns: Nouns are a fundamental element of German grammar, just like in every other language. die Doktorin (the ladydoctor), All together, you have “giant-chess-board,” or Groβ-schach-anlage. But here are some good news: Luckily, there are certain rules that determine whether a noun is masculine, feminine or neuter. Of course, you already know the different cases in German. Privacy Policy | Some verbs don't need an object, but then they need something else to complete the sense of the sentence. Second part of the lesson explains elements of a sentence structure in German e.g. German nouns are also declined (change form) depending on their grammatical case (their function in a sentence) and whether they … German nouns have a grammatical gender, as in many related Indo-European languages. Poor Jens has been talked into watching his little niece for the afternoon. In English it's pretty simple to go from having one of something, to having more than one. Often all you need to do is an an -s. There are a few exceptions, of course. Fortunately, you can get insider-info by reading all the whys and wherefores in this thorough how-to / when-to guide to German genitive case! the blue sky, a big lake, three buzzing bees, many fuzzy bears, etc.). Nouns are usually the most important part of vocabulary. ❚❚, die Universität (the university), So, don’t worry about needing to memorize thousands of isolated noun plurals. If you wanted to say, “My bird’s name is Perry,” you would say, “Mein Vogel heiβt Perry.”, To say, “I have a brown dog,” you would need to make sure “brown” has the correct adjective ending: “Ich habe einen braunen Hund.”, Welche Farbe hat dein Hemd? In Wand (f), the (f) represents feminine. Here, we are discussing them to understand gender characteristic of noun. Since we have 3 genders (and then the plural, too! The dative case is, of course, another ‘slot’ that we can put a noun into when it needs to play the particular role of the indirect object in a given sentence. So not only do you have to remember to capitalize every sentence and "proper" noun like we do in English, you have to capitalize every other thing as well. Seriously.) der Professor (the professor). stimmt (correct). Try to concentrate on the lesson and notice the pattern that occurs each time the word changes its place. Dependent on how you categorize things, there are between 5-9 different ways to form plurals in German. One example is compound nouns, where two words have simply been stuck together to create a new one. Due to this fact, surrealistically-long nouns can be created. FluentU takes real-world videos—like movie trailers, news and inspiring talks—and turns them into personalized language lessons. Learn a few German noun plurals shortcuts that you can apply across the board (with few exceptions). Different from the English language, German nouns have grammatical gender. You can learn in this extensive guide to the dative case about all the relevant details about how to know when to use the dative case and then how to make the right changes to the right words so that they’re accurately reflecting ‘hey, I’m in the dative case!’. So that the gender & case of the noun is properly signaled? schwarz (black) The skinny on der, die, das is that they are 3 different ways to say ‘the’ in German (heads up: there are 3 additional ways, too: den, dem, and des).