Cases in German are easy. See for yourself! German articles table with translation

Lack of article in nouns

The following are used without the article:

Proper names, names of cities, countries and continents:

Schiller ist der bekannte deutsche Dichter. Schiller is a famous German poet. Moscow ist eine große Stadt. Moscow is a big city. Russland liegt in Norden. Russia lies (is located) in the north. Ural ist die Grenze zwischen Europa und Asia. The Urals are the border between Europe and Asia.

The exceptions are the following country names, which are used with an article:

In the names of countries that include their political designation, the article of political designation is used:

Die Gemeinschaft Unabhängiger Staaten. - CIS. Die EU (Europäische Union) - European Union.

Note: If proper names, names of cities, countries and continents are preceded by an adjective or followed by a definition in the genitive case, then these nouns are used with the definite article:

das alte Moskau, das Moskau der Sovjetzeit.

If a noun is preceded by a modifier expressed by a pronoun or cardinal number:

Ich habe deinen Brief bekommen. - I received your letter. Die Reisegruppe besteht aus vierzehn Menschen. - The group of tourists consists of fourteen people.

1. Uncountable concepts without definition, for example: Brot, Geld, Wärme, Luft:

Hast du Geld? - Do you have money? Die Pflanzen fühlen sich bei Wärme wohl. - Plants do well in warm conditions. Die Pflanzen fühlen sich auf derfrischen Luft wohl. - Plants do well in the fresh air.

The definition used here is frisch, therefore, the noun is used with an article.

Names of substances, liquids, objects without definition, for example: Wasser, Benzin, Alkohol, Holz, Glas, Beton:

Ich trinke Kaffee. - I'm drinking coffee. But: Ich trinke den schwarzen Kaffee. - I drink black coffee.

Names of character qualities or feelings without definition:

Ich habe Angst. But: Die grösste Angst habe ich vor Spinnen.

If designations of profession, rank, party affiliation, nation, season, part of the day, etc. are used without definition:

Diese Frau ist Arztin. - This woman is a doctor. Es ist Nacht. - Night. Er studiert Chemie. - He studies chemistry. Sie ist eine gute Verkauferin. - She's a good saleswoman.

Nouns that come after the designation of measure, weight, quantity:

Er kauft ein Kilo Wurst. - He buys a kilogram of sausage. Wir haben 20 Grad Kä lte. – It’s 20 degrees below zero here.

If the adjective in the genitive case is used before a noun:

Wessen Buch liegt auf dem Tisch? - Whose book is on the table? Brigittes Schwester backt leckere Kuchen. - Brigid's sister bakes delicious pies. But, Die Schwester von Brigitte backt leckere Kuchen.

In some stable expressions, proverbs and sayings:

Schach spielen - play chess. Fußball spielen - play football. zu Hause - at home. nach Hause - home. Frieden schlissen. - make peace. Ende gut, alles gut.

Often there is no article after prepositions ohne, ab, auß , bei, nach, vor:

Zu Weihnachten - for Christmas, ohne Hilfe - without help, vor Beginn - before the beginning, nach Ende - after the end.

How often have you promised yourself to start doing something next Monday, next month... next year? But then either they didn’t even try to get down to business, or they soon abandoned everything. It’s the same with learning a foreign language: at first we are full of enthusiasm, and then the first difficulties begin to arise - and we begin to look for an excuse for ourselves not to do anything.

And if many people learned the English language with grief, then the cases in the German language scare away almost everyone at the very beginning of learning. However, if you think about it, everything is not so scary at all. After all, our native language is Russian. And it has as many as six cases and three singular genders. Besides, forget about her. And in German everything is the same, but there are only four cases, how can you not cope? So let's start figuring it out right now.

Unlike Russian, cases in German are expressed using articles, and not As for adjectives and pronouns, their endings are consistent across cases, but priority in their expression is still given to articles. The endings rather reflect the noun being defined. So, there are the following cases of the German language:

As mentioned above, cases in German are expressed through articles, so for ease of understanding I offer you a table with the change of articles by case.

* - the ending -s is also added to the noun;

** - the ending -n is added to the noun.

Now that we have dealt with the basic questions regarding how cases are used in the German language, it’s time to get down to the most interesting part - prepositions. After all, they are often the ones who influence the use of one case or another. And they are not difficult to learn!

As you can see, cases in German can still be studied, and their use is even more logical than in Russian. So go for it - and remember that everything here depends only on you.

Each noun in the German language has its own specific grammatical gender, which is often inherent in the noun without any apparent meaning or obvious logic to a Russian person. This makes it necessary to memorize nouns along with their accompanying articles, which, in particular, indicate this gender. In fact, there is no other way. For example, it is not easy for a Russian person to understand why the following nouns have exactly this grammatical gender: child (male) –dasKind (middle), baba (female) –dasWeib (medium), girl, girl (female) –dasMädchen (middle), rabbit (male) –dasKaninchen (medium), milk (medium) -dieMilch (female), Little Red Riding Hood (female) –dasRotkäppchen (middle), Snegurochka (female) –dasSchneewittchen (middle), Cinderella (female) –dasAschenputtel (middle), etc.

See also materials:

However, such complexity is not at all a serious obstacle to learning German. A table of the German articles themselves can be compiled to summarize the patterns of use of articles, but it does not provide any explanation for assigning the corresponding articles to certain nouns. However, there are certain endings for nouns that indicate a specific gender, for example: — heit (always female):dieEntschlossenheit; —keit (always female):dieGerechtigkeit - justice; —ung (always female):dieVereinigung - unification; — or (always male):derStator – stator; — chen (always average):dasBrötchen – bun. Let's first try to summarize in the form of a table the endings of nouns, consistently, in the vast majority of cases, and some of them always, having indications of a specific gender of the noun:

In addition to the table, it is necessary to mention that all animate nouns that name male persons and animals are also classified as masculine. (entrepreneur -derGeschäftsmann, violinist –derGeiger, wolf –derWolf, wrestler –derRinger, Abkhazian –derAnhase), names of precipitation (frost -derRaureif, blizzard –derSchneesturm), names of minerals (quartz -derQuarz; mica –derGlimmer), cars (derSuzukiderRangeRover,derLincoln), mountain peaks (derArarat,derBroken), calendar dates (Thursday -derDonnerstag, winter –derWinter, February –derFebruary). The feminine gender includes all animate nouns denoting female persons and animals ( female hairdresserdieFriseuse, poetess –dieDichterin, rat -dieRatte, cow -dieKuh), substantivized numerals ( a hundred -dieHundert, four –dieVier), names of river and sea vessels ( dieAurora,dieKrasin,dieJermak). Nouns with the prefix are considered neuter. ge- (gearbox –dasGetriebe, building –dasGehause, noise –dasGeräusch), substantivized verbs in the infinitive form (fried pork -dasSchweinebraten, dancing -dasTanzen, swimming –dasBaden), baby animals (bear cub, bear cub -dasBärenjunge), letter names (dasD,dasOmega). But we are not talking about the unconditionality of all the above-mentioned cases; in most cases there are still some exceptions.

Thus, every noun has an article, or, as it is also called, an accompanying or generic word. Sometimes a noun itself has characteristics of a certain gender (as the table above demonstrates), and sometimes it (its ending, suffix) does not show any gender characteristics. In this case, the gender of the name is conveyed by its article. There are three definite articles in German (indicating a specific object) and three indefinite articles (indicating an object being mentioned for the first time) and one article for all names in the plural. Indefinite articles in the plural correspond to the zero article - that is, the noun stands without an article.

Table of articles of the German language - declension of definite articles

German article table - declension of indefinite articles

From the table of articles of the German language it is clear that the declension of the indefinite article occurs in the same way as the definite; in this case, only the nominative case of the masculine and neuter gender and the accusative of the neuter are rejected, in which the indefinite articles do not have case endings of the corresponding genders.

Learning a certain set of words in the German language is only half the task that faces everyone who is going to master this discipline. For beginners, information that explains the role of grammar in language will be useful. It is she who helps to connect words with each other and build phrases.

Without grammar and its many rules, it would be impossible to understand each other - speech would look like a simple set of words. Therefore, when mastering German, you should not neglect its detailed study.

Case and declension of the article in German

In the dictionary we see words that are presented in the nominative case - they answer the question “who?” or “what?” When reading these words, we name objects that themselves produce actions, i.e. are subjects.

If an action is directed towards an object, it is its object. In this case, the noun begins to change by case. There are four cases in German:

• Nominative(nominative case) – answers the questions: wer? (Who?) was? (What?);
• Genitiv(genitive or possessive case) – wessen? (whose? whose? whose?);
• Dativ(dative) - wem? (to whom?) wann? (When?) wo? (Where?) wie? (How?);
• Akkusativ(accusative) - wen? was? (who? what?) wohin? (Where?).

In the German language, declension occurs with the obligatory use of the article, and you need to memorize word variants along with it.

How to incline nouns with articles?

If in the Russian language it is possible to inflect nouns, adjectives and other parts of speech without an article, then in German the article, despite its “official” purpose, is mandatory in this process. The fact is that in Russian, when declension, the ending of the word changes, and in German, the ending of the article changes.

Declension of the definite article in the table

Tables showing how articles are declined need to be memorized well. This will help you avoid mistakes in constructing phrases and speak correctly on a particular topic. Declension of the definite article:

Declension of the indefinite article

Peculiarities

Conjugating nouns in German is not a difficult topic, because it is enough to learn the endings of articles in one case or another. In some cases, nouns are inflected with special features:

• in the genitive case, masculine and neuter nouns acquire the ending -(e)s: (des Tisches, des Buches);
• in the plural of the dative case, the noun receives the ending -(e)n: den Kindern;
• There is no indefinite article in the plural: this is because the article ein comes from the numeral eins - one, and it is inappropriate in the plural. The negation of kein - none for the plural will look like keine - none.

Easy exercises on declension will help you quickly consolidate your knowledge on the topic of cases in the German language. To make it easier to carry them out, let’s look at this topic using the example of declension of specific nouns in two sentences:

• Die Kinder spielen in dem (=im) Wald. – Children play (where? – Dativ) in the forest, i.e. noun der Wald is in the dative case (hence the article DEM).
• Die Kinder gehen in den Wald. – The children are going (where? – Akk.) to the forest. In this case, der Wald is in Akk. – den Wald.

In order to fully master cases in German, be sure to practice composing sentences on different topics and with different articles.

Anyone who is just starting to learn German is faced with the problem of articles. It is difficult for Russian speakers to understand this topic, because in our speech we do not use anything similar to articles in German. In this article, we clearly and simply answer the most common questions among beginners on this topic.

There are several types of articles in German: definite, indefinite and zero. Let's consider each of them in order.

Definite article

There are only four of them:

Der - for masculine nouns (der);

Die - for the feminine gender (di);

Das - for the neuter gender (das);

Die - plural (di).

They are used in the following cases:

1. When we know what we are talking about. If this subject has already been discussed before. For example: der Hund (a certain dog already mentioned).
2. To denote phenomena that are one of a kind, for which there are no analogues in nature (die Erde - Earth).
3. To designate many geographical objects: rivers, cities, mountains, seas, oceans, streets and so on (die Alpen - Alps).
4. If our noun is preceded by (der dritte Mann - the third person), or an adjective (der schnellste Mann - the fastest person).

Indefinite article

Ein - masculine and neuter gender (ain);

Eine - feminine gender (aine).

There is no article for the plural in this case.

In German it is used in the following cases:

1. When we talk about objects unfamiliar to us (ein Hund is some kind of dog that we hear about for the first time).
2. After the phrase “es gibt” (literally “there is”), for simplicity, we can draw an analogy with the English “there is” (Es gibt einen Weg - there is a road here).
3. For designations of species or class (Der Löwe ist ein Raubtier - lion - a predatory animal).
4. With the verbs Haben (to have) and Brauchen (to need). For example: “Ich habe eine Arbeit” - I have a job.

Zero article

Not all articles actually exist in the German language. There is such a thing as essentially no article at all. So, we don't write anything before a noun if:

1. It denotes a profession or type of activity (Sie ist Ärztin - she is a doctor).
2. Before many proper names (London ist die Hauptstadt von Großbritannien - London is the capital of Great Britain).
3. To denote the plural (Hier wohnen Menschen - people live here).
4. When designating any chemical substance or material (aus Gold - made of gold).

Almost always in Russian and the corresponding articles in German differ from each other. For example, if our “girl” is feminine, then in German it is neuter – “das Mädchen”. That is, like a “girl”. There is a set of endings that can be used to make it easier to determine the gender of a noun, but for the most part there is only one way out - remember.

Another difficulty is the declension of articles in German. Just as in Russian we don’t say: “I see a girl,” so in German. Each article is declined according to its case. The task is made easier by the fact that there are only four cases: Nominativ (nominative), Genetiv (genitive), Dativ (dative) and Akkusativ (like the accusative). You just need to remember the declination. For your convenience, we provide the table below.

As for indefinite articles, they are declined according to the same principle. For example, the masculine article ein in Akk will be einen, simply adding -en to it. This happens with all other articles.