The Declension Of German Nouns

The declension of German nouns - made a little easier!

A dog is "der Hund"; a woman is "die Frau"; a horse is "das Pferd"; now you put that dog in the genitive case, and is he the same dog he was before? No, sir; he is "des Hundes"; put him in the dative case and what is he? Why, he is "dem Hund." Now you snatch him into the accusative case and how is it with him? Why, he is "den Hunden." But suppose he happens to be twins and you have to pluralize him- what then? Why, they'll swat that twin dog around through the four cases until he'll think he's an entire international dog-show all in is own person. I don't like dogs, but I wouldn't treat a dog like that- I wouldn't even treat a borrowed dog that way. Well, it's just the same with a cat. They start her in at the nominative singular in good health and fair to look upon, and they sweat her through all the 4 cases and the 16ths and when she limps out through the accusative plural you wouldn't recognize her for the same being. Yes, sir, once the German language gets hold of a cat, it's goodbye cat. That's about the amount of it.

 

- Mark Twain's Notebook

Firstly, I don’t agree with Mark Twain. Secondly, I don’t like all those “easy” suggestions. Most of them are rip-offs and far from being easier than other stuff before them. Thirdly, I don’t want to say the German declination system is easy, but it is not as difficult as many people believe.

What is declension (in German: Deklination)?

In some languages, nouns change according to their role in the sentence (subject, direct object, indirect object, directional case etc.) In German, it is not so much the nouns which change, but their articles (and in some cases also the nouns).

At first view, it looks like a purely grammatical problem, but it is not.

Example 1:

• Die Mutter kocht dem Kind eine Suppe.

• Die Mutter kocht das Kind.

Example 2:

• Man schenkt dem Mann einen Löwen.

• Man schenkt dem Löwen einen Mann.

In the first example, the meaning of dem Kind is for the child. The mother is cooking a soup for the child. The second sentence actually means that the mother is a cannibal, she is cooking her child. The difference is expressed only by different cases, in the first sentence by the dative case (dem Kind), in the second by the accusative case (das Kind).

The second example shows the difference of whom or what is given as a present to whom or what. In the first sentence, the man receives an uncommon gift, in the second sentence maybe he is given to the lion as feed. In German, this difference can be expressed mainly by the declension (and a little bit by the word order).

In most of the German course books one will find three major kinds of lists for the declension (and then some minor ones). They all look very similar, with some odd differences which are hard to explain. I believe, one list is enough, if you know how to use it.

Of course, any kind of simplification leads to problems. This table covers almost all cases, with one exception (single exclamation mark!). But with less than this it is not possible to get German declension right.

Symbols and colours

The core concept of this table is the symbol (letter). German has three genders: masculine, feminine and neuter. Usually, the symbol must be seen once, and not more often than that. So, the symbol is shown either at the article or at the adjective.

The distribution of the articles seems quite random. It has nothing to do with biological gender. The girl in German is neuter (das Mädchen), a skirt is masculine (der Rock) and a bottle is feminine (die Flasche). The gender can be seen by means of the article (der, die, das) or by means of the symbol: r for masculine, e for feminine and s for neuter (the last letter of the article).

How do we know the article of a noun? There is no rule, apart from a few cases (for example all nouns in -ung, -tion, -heit are feminine etc.). They must be learnt by heart, and this might be the most difficult part when learning German. There is only one article for the plural: die or the symbol e.

The red and yellow colour will tell us something about the declension of an adjective when it appears together with an article.

How to use this table: Symbols

A) Declension of the definite articles 

This also includes demonstrative articles (dies-), jed- and the question pronouns welch-.

Nom. Der Hund ist klein.

Acc. Ich sehe den Hund.

Dat. Ich folge dem Hund.

Gen. Die Leine des Hundes ist weg.

Nom. Welcher Hund gefällt dir? Dieser da.

Acc. Welchen Hund magst du? Diesen da.

Dat. Mit welchem Kind möchtest du spielen? Mit diesem.

Gen. Die Eltern dieses Kindes kommen heute.

The article or the pronoun gets the symbol.

Pay attention to Dative plural. When possible, n is added to the noun: den Hunden, and in the case of Genitive masculine or neuter, s is added to the noun: des Hundes/des Kindes. These are the only cases where the noun changes as well.

B) Declension of the indefinite articles (ein etc.), negative articles (kein etc.) and possessive pronouns (mein etc.)

There is no plural indefinite article (Hunde, Kinder, double exclamation mark), but of course, the table works for kein- and mein-, dein- etc also in the plural.

The indefinite articles in Nominative masculine and neuter and Accusative neuter don’t show the symbol (exclamation mark). That is the only exception where it is not possible to see the gender from the ending. ein can be masculine (ein Hund) or neuter (ein Kind). The feminine form does show it (eine).

These exceptions often lead to the wrong assumption that, for example, einer Hund would be nominative. This is wrong, but a similar structure exists.

Correct:

Ich sehe keinen Hund (acc.). – Doch, da ist einer (Nom.).

Correct (but not used much):

Ich sehe keinen Hund – Doch, da ist ein Hund.

Incorrect:

Ich sehe keinen Hund. – Doch, da ist einer Hund.

The first sentence is preferable because, for stylistic reasons, one should avoid repeating a noun. When the noun is not repeated, we must see its gender, here the symbol r for masculine. The second sentence is grammatically right, but does not sound very nice because of the repetition. The third one is wrong, because einer is not an article, but an indefinite pronoun, so it can’t go with the noun. This works for all genders:

Ich sehe keine Katze. – Doch, da ist eine.

Ich sehe kein Kind. – Doch, da ist eins.

Ich sehe keine Hunde. – Doch, da sind welche.

Notice that the indefinite pronoun always has the right ending, opposite to the indefinite article ein. The plural indefinite pronoun is welche (some) because ein- has no plural form.

C) Declension of adjectives without articles

The table works every time apart from masculine and neuter Genitive. One shouldn’t mind too much, because these forms are hardly ever used.

Nom. Kalter Kaffee macht schön.

Acc. Ich trinke nicht gerne kalten Kaffee.

Dat. Mit kaltem Kaffee schmeckt das nicht.

Gen. Er trinkt eine Tasse kalten Kaffees/kalter Milch.

D) Declension of the personal pronouns

Apart from changes in the word form, the endings of the personal pronouns follow the table completely. In the contemporary German language, the personal pronoun in the Genitive case does not exist anymore.

How to use this table: Colours

The colours are used only in the case of having both an article and an adjective. Adjectives between an adjective and a noun have at least an e.

A) Yellow

With a definite article, the adjective gets an e. With an indefinite article, the symbol and the e are attached to the adjective, because the symbol is missing at the indefinite article (exclamation mark). For feminine, the endings are both e, for the article and the adjective.

Masc. der große Hund – ein großer Hund (Nom.)

Fem. die kleine Katze – eine kleine Katze (Nom., Acc.)

Neut. das süße Kind – ein süßes Kind (Nom., Acc.)

B) Red

In the singular, the adjective has the ending -en.

einen großen Hund - den großen Hund

einem großen Hund - dem großen Hund

eines großen Hundes – des großen Hundes

Pay attention to the plural: the indefinite article for the plural does not exist (as in English). This is the reason for the difference in the Nominative and Accusative case (große – die großen) and the source of many mistakes.

Nom. große Hunde (indef.) – die großen Hunde (def.)

Acc. große Hunde (indef.) – die großen Hunde (def.)

Dat. mit großen Hunden (indef.) – mit den großen Hunden (def.)

Gen. die Leine großer Hunde (indef.) – die Leine der großen Hunde (def.)

C) Mixed yellow and red

Attention to the possessive pronouns and negative articles. They are pretty difficult, because they change their declension class. In the singular, they work in the same way as in the indefinite article (yellow).

ein/ kein/ mein/ dein/ sein etc. großer Hund

einen/ keinen/ meinen/ deinen/ seinen etc. großen Hund

But in the plural they swap to red.

die/ keine/ meine/ deine/ seine etc. großen Hunde

Use your ear instead of grammar!

Another way to get along with declension could be a phonetic approach. Many parts seem to obey a sound pattern. Can you see how similar letters follow each other? For example, m, n and r (except in the Nominative case) are always followed by n. For the Dative plural you will find three n: den großen Hunden.

For the ending e it is a little bit different. Sometimes it is followed by another e, sometimes by en. The difference lies in the distinction between feminine (e) and plural (n).

How do you learn all of that? I think there are just two ways of learning declension. One is immersion in a German-speaking environment such as, for example, children growing up in Germany. This way, they can take their time being exposed for many years to the right forms, and learn it simply by copying. For most students of German, this is not an option.

The other way would be by making sense of this system, understanding that we always need to know three things about a noun: gender, numeral and case. This is not only grammar, but it has a meaning.

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