Lesson 3: Gender in German

German nouns have three genders:

• masculine
• neuter
• feminine

Nouns in German are identified by their definite (or indefinite article) or declension (an inflected form of a pronoun or adjective that precedes the noun which identifies its gender and or number).

Below is the nominative forms for the definite article (der, das, die, die) in German (the nominative will be discussed in greater detail in a future lesson, but for now, memorize the forms below), the indefinite article (ein, ein, eine) as well as kein/keine (I'll explain that, too):

Remember, that in German the indefinite article (ein, eine) has no plural form, just like English.

Note that nouns in German have two forms: a singular form, that is either masculine, neuter or feminine, as well as a plural form:

der Bleisfift, die Bleistifte | the pencil, the pencils
das Kind, die Kinder | the child, the children
die Kusine, die Kusinen | the cousin, the cousins

In German textbooks, the plural form is generally abbreviated after the singular form. When learning nouns, remember to learn its gender and its plural form. Below are some examples of the possible noun endings:

der Bleistift, -e (adds an -e to the ending)

der Stuhl, -¨e (adds an umlaut over the stressed vowel with the ending -e)
der Junge, -n (adds an -n to the ending)
der Mann, -¨er (adds umlauts over the stressed vowel with ending -er)
der Onkel, - (no ending, simply change the definite article to die)
das Kind, -er (adds an -er to the ending)
die Mutter, -¨ (adds umlauts over the stressed vowel)

die Uhr, -en (adds an -en to the ending)

die Studentin, -nen (adds a -nen to the ending)

der Kuli, -s (adds a -s to the ending)

NB: In most books the umlauts hover over the dash, but I don't know how to make those on my computer. If anyone knows, please leave a comment!