German Articles

If you're trying to learn German Articles you will find some useful resources including a course about Definite and Indefinite Articles... to help you with your German grammar. Try to concentrate on the lesson and notice the pattern that occurs each time the word changes its place. Also don't forget to check the rest of our other lessons listed on Learn German. Enjoy the rest of the lesson!

German Articles

Articles are words often used before nouns. They determine their grammatical case, gender and singular/plural.

In German nouns are often accompanied by an article. These can either be definite or indefinite, the number and the gender.

In German you have three different genders:

-          Masculine (m)

-          Feminine (f)

-          Neuter (n)

and two numbers:

-          Singular

-          Plural

as well as four cases:

-          Nominative (*I am referring to this one in this lesson.)

-          Genitive

-          Dative

-          Akkusative

For more details on the cases, see lesson “cases”.

The matter of grammatical gender in German is quite different from other languages.
The definition of the gender of nouns does not entirely depend on its sex.

For example:

the woman = die Frau (f)
but
the girl = das Mädchen (n)

Both are of feminine gender, but still the articles are different.

In German we have 3 different words for “ocean” or “sea” and each of them has its own gender: der Ozean (m), das Meer (f), die See (n).

It is not always the best choice to simply transfer the gender from one language into another. It can often go wrong, as this example shows:

Spanish: el sol (m) and la luna (f)
German: die Sonne (f) and der Mond (m)

The genders are the opposite way around! The sun is masculine in Spanish, whereas it’s female in German and the Spanish moon is female, whereas the German one is masculine. In English they are all referred to with “the”. The genders… Enough to drive you crazy!

You have no choice as to memorise the German nouns directly with their article and to learn them by heart.

Note that all nouns in German are written with a capital letter. This rule also includes proper names, cities, countries, rivers, mountains, animals, etc…

The definite article in plural is always “die”, no matter the gender.
(I am referring to the case “Nominative” here. See more on this subject in lessons “Cases”.)

The indefinite article in singular for the masculine and neuter gender is always “ein”.
There is no plural existing for the indefinite articles.

Here are some more examples:

Learning the German Articles displayed below is vital to the language. German articles are words that combine with a noun to indicate the type of reference being made by the noun. Generally articles specify the grammatical definiteness of the noun. Examples are "the, a, and an". Here are some examples:

Notice the structure of the Articles in German.

List of Articles in German

Below is a list of vocabulary where you can use the Definite and Indefinite Articles in German. Try to practice but also memorizing this table will help you add very useful and important words to your German vocabulary.

Definite and Indefinite Articles have a very important role in German. Once you're done with German Articles, you might want to check the rest of our German lessons here: Learn German. Don't forget to bookmark this page.

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