Language/German/Grammar/Gender

In German nouns are either masculine (male), feminine (female) or neuter (things/entities without a natural gender like book, sun or moon). The grammatical gender is not always identical with the natural gender of a noun in German. Be carful: the grammatical gender of a noun in your native language can be different from the grammatical gender of the noun in German.

For example:

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.

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

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In this lesson, we learn the "Gender" subject in Deutsch. Follow the lesson.

When you talk about a female, say "eine" instead "ein" ( ein/eine = a/an).

eine => female

ein => male

Example: Ich bin eine Lehrerin.

Look at the sentence again, we say "Lehrerin" instead "Lehrer". Yes! When we talk about a female, we should add one "in" at the end of the sentence.

Example :

Ich bin eine Busfahrerin (Busfahrer)

Ich bin eine Ingenieurin (Ingenieur)

___________

Note: all German names, have gender :| (I mean these words also have gender : bravery, sunset and ...)

In Deutsch we have 3 types of verbs in the third person.

Sie (She) => Female

Er (He) => Male

Es (Neutral) => Things

Example :

Sie ist eine Forografin (She is a Photographer)

Er ist ein Fotograf (He is a Photographer)

Note: Don't worry for "es"

Note: all German names, have gender :| (I mean also this words have gender : bravery, sunset and ...)

Der (The) => Male

Die (The) => Female

Das (The) => Neutral

See that :

die Jahreszeiten (the seasons) => Gender : Female

der weg (the way) => Gender : Male

Good luck.