In today’s lesson, we will learn how to utilize German nouns, noun genders, plural nouns, and all the different ways to express “the”. Now let’s get started!

Capitalization rules

You may have noticed something odd about lots of the German words you’ve encountered - many of them start with capital letters.

That’s because all nouns in German are capitalized. Everything is capitalized, including people, places, and things. Not only do you have to remember to capitalize each sentence and “proper” word like we do in English, but you also have to capitalize everything else.

Do you want to watch a party trick? (We thought you'd find this useful the next time you want to impress your pals.) Even if you have no idea what this statement means, you can probably recognize all the nouns in it.

(It's worth a try. Write down the words you believe are nouns, then check your answer by clicking the sentence.)

 

 

This is not just a cool party trick, but it also comes in handy when you’re attempting to figure out the meaning of a new German sentence. Capitalization is a useful indicator that you've encountered a noun.

German noun genders

Every noun (person, place, and object) in German has been assigned a gender: feminine, masculine, or neutral. This is another strange feature we don't have in English.

How do you determine a word's gender? You must look at the word for “the” that comes before the nouns.

 

 

Unfortunately, there aren't many guidelines for determining which kinds of words have which genders. The sole constant is that plural nouns (more than one) will always employ the word “die.”

When learning most other words, you just need to remember the gender.

Noun genders 

Now we’re taking you to the park to learn some German noun genders. It may drive you crazy, but it’s a great opportunity for us to figure out the genders of everything within ten miles of our living places. Get ready. Get set. Go!

Masculine nouns: der

 

 

 

 

Feminine nouns: die

 

 

 

 

Neutral nouns: das

 

 

 

Plural nouns: die

 

Plural nouns

It's quite simple in English to go from having one of something to have more than one. In most cases, all you need is an -s.

 

Of course, there are certain exceptions. Puppy/puppies and sheep/sheep are two examples. However, most of the time, the -s will do the job.

Unfortunately for those of us who are studying German, this aspect of the language is crazy. Prepare yourself.

Plural nouns in German can be formed in a variety of ways. And because there aren’t any rules guiding you on which one to use, you'll have to memorize the plural form of each noun as you learn it.

(It's great that humans have such a large number of brain cells. It's also great that humans invented flashcards! Make use of them. Seriously.)

Here are some examples of how German plurals are formed:

• By adding a suffix to the word: –s, –n, –en, –e, –er
• By converting the vowel in the word to an umlaut vowel (e.g. a to ä)
• Or the double whammy: By converting the vowel and adding a suffix

Take a look at these examples to understand how unpredictable it can be:

(Keep in mind that die will be used as the “the” word in all plurals. Don't be fooled by that!)

 

Plurals made with -s

 

Plurals made with -n

 

Plurals made with -e

 

Plurals made with -er

 

Plurals made with a vowel change

 

Double whammy

 

Have you gotten all of that? If not, you should try to use flashcards. Another technique is looking up a word in a good German dictionary will also give you the plural form of the word.

This is the end of our today's German speaking lesson. We hope that you can know how to use German nouns correctly. And don’t forget to follow us in the next German lessons.

Tags: learn speaking German, German nouns, how to learn speaking German, learn German lessons, German noun genders, German plural nouns, learn German language, German speaking lessons