German
nouns are preceded by three distinct definite articles: the masculine
article der ( deyR ), the feminine
article die ( dee ), or the neuter
article das ( dAs ). All plural
nouns are preceded by the plural article die ( dee ).
Determining The Gender Of German Nouns
Determining
gender can be tricky. Often, the natural gender of the noun and the
grammatical gender of the definitive article work the way you'd
expect them to; Herr ( heR ), for
example, the noun for "man," takes the masculine
article der ( deyR ).
But
more often, you can't get the article for a noun just by looking at
it. (You can of course look the noun up in a dictionary, where
masculine nouns are followed by m., feminine nouns
by f., and neuter nouns by n. )
Scholars have come up with many theories about why some nouns take
certain definite articles, but the truth is, in German, there are no
simple rules or explanations for determining gender. Why is the meat
you eat at dinner neuter ( das Fleisch ), the potato
feminine ( die Kartoffel ) and the cauliflower
masculine ( der Rosenkohl )? Your guess is as good
as ours.
Tips And Tricks For Determing German Noun Gender
Even
in a world where hardly anything is what it seems, there are still
certain kinds of nouns whose gender you can determine even if you
haven't memorized their definite article. For example, nouns
referring to male persons ( der Mann, der Sohn ),
nouns of professions ending in -er, -or, -ler or -ner ( der
Pastor, der B ä cker ) and most nouns referring
to male animals or a species ( der Fuchs, der L ö we )
take the article der .
Generally,
two-syllable nouns ending in -e such
as Sonne ( zo-nuh ),
and Blume ( blew-muh ), take the
feminine article die . Countries, towns and cities
all take the neuter article das . So do the letters
of the alphabet: das A,das B, das C
and so on.
Other
than learning the gender and the plural form of a noun along with the
noun itself, there is no fail-safe way of ensuring that you know the
correct gender of the German noun you are about to use in a sentence.
The gender of a noun affects its relationship to other words in a
sentence, and if you learn the definite articles along with the
nouns, it will be easier for you to form sentences correctly later.
