Language/German/Grammar/Gender

Hello everybody,

In today's lesson you will learn how to use genders in German.

In German nouns are either masculine (male, männlich in German), feminine (female, weiblich in German) or neuter (things/entities without a natural gender like book, sun or moon, sächlich in German).

The grammatical gender is not always identical with the natural gender of a noun in German.

Be careful: the grammatical gender of a noun in your native language can be different from the grammatical gender of the noun in German.

Examples:

• das Mädchen neuter - girl

Girls are female, the natural gender of a girl is female, but the grammatical gender of "Mädchen" in German is neuter.

• die Sonne in German is feminine - the sun in English is masculine

• der Mond in German is masculine - the moon in English is feminine

Why is it so important to know the grammatical gender of a noun in German? In German you often have to use an article with the noun. The articles for the three types of gender and the different cases are not the same. To use the correct article you have to know the grammatical gender.

With this lesson's content fresh in your mind, consider delving into these associated areas: Gender, Be Polite, Expressing Abilities & Cases: Nominative and Accusative.

Example for definite (der, die, das) and indefinite (ein, eine) articles in German

Singular

(man - Mann, woman - Frau, girl - Mädchen)

Case	masculine	feminine	neuter
Nominativ	der / ein Mann	die / eine Frau	das / ein Mädchen
Genitiv	des / eines Mannes	der / einer Frau	des / eines Mädchens
Dativ	dem / einem Mann	der / einer Frau	dem / einem Mädchen
Akkusativ	den / einen Mann	die / eine Frau	das /ein Mädchen

Pronouns that replace nouns are different for gender and cases, too. So you have to know the grammatical gender to use the correct pronoun in German sentences.

Example:

The man is talking to his child. He wears a black shirt.

• Der Mann spricht mit seinem Kind. Er trägt ein schwarzes Shirt.

For nouns that describe a profession you are able to "transform" the grammatical gender from masculine to feminine in German. Similar to the transformation of the noun actor as the expression for a male actor to the noun actress as the expression for a female actor in English.

• der Schauspieler (actor) -> die Schauspielerin (actress)
• der Doktor (doctor) -> die Doktorin
• der Fahrer (driver) -> die Fahrerin

To determine the grammatical gender of a noun is not easy. Basically, you just have to memorize it. But there are some rules that can help a lot:

• Most nouns ending in -e are feminine: die Straße, die Soße, die Pfanne. It's not a 100-percent rule, there are exceptions: der Hase
• All nouns ending in -tion are feminine. 100 percent. Trust me: die Revolution, die Evolution, die Partizipation
• All nouns ending in -heit or -keit are feminine. No exceptions: die Schönheit, die Traurigkeit, die Lustlosigkeit
• All nouns ending in -tum are neutral: das Christentum, das Judentum, das Eigentum
• Most nouns ending in -nis are feminine: die Finsternis, die Kenntnis, die Erkenntnis, but das Hindernis which is at the moment the only exception that I can figure out, but there may be more
• Most names of trees are feminine: die Eiche, die Birke, die Pappel, die Fichte, die Tanne, die Weide, die Buche but there are exceptions: der Ahorn, der Weißdorn

If you are a native French speaker, be careful. Even if the word sounds familiar or even if it is a French loanword the gender can be surprising. Consider these:

• le bastion = die Bastion
• un uniforme = eine Uniform
• l'urine = der Urin
• le front = die Front
• le parti = die Partei
• le blasphème = die Blasphemie

You could make the list much longer, so be warned. But using the wrong article has generally not consequences for being understood. So relax. You might also find it useful to think about the fact that in some German dialects the articles are only slightly different. And also Germans do struggle. In the Odenwald region (close to Heidelberg) many people will say die Bach. In Standard German this in an ugly fault: You must say der Bach. So if you are struggling too, you may be in good company.

Other Lessons

• Past Participle in German
• Prepositions
• How to Use Be
• Common Mistakes
• Imperative Tense
• Past Tense
• Adjectives
• Nouns
• How to Use Have
• Future Tense