{"id":706,"date":"2017-11-18T16:09:24","date_gmt":"2017-11-18T16:09:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.clozemaster.com\/blog\/?p=706"},"modified":"2018-10-02T16:04:41","modified_gmt":"2018-10-02T16:04:41","slug":"german-definite-articles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.clozemaster.com\/blog\/german-definite-articles\/","title":{"rendered":"German Definite Articles Der, Die, Das: Everything You Need to Know about Definite Articles in German"},"content":{"rendered":"

When you first start learning German, you might feel quite upbeat and optimistic, thinking \u201cOk, this doesn’t look that hard, some of it is quite similar to English, like \u201c<\/span>Good morning<\/span><\/i>\u201d = \u201c<\/span>Guten Morgen<\/span><\/i>\u201d or \u201c<\/span>Monday<\/span><\/i>\u201d = \u201c<\/span>Montag<\/span><\/i>\u201d, I can do this!\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

What’s an article?<\/h2>\n

And then you come across a little something called <\/span>ARTICLES <\/b>(cue dramatic music). Since when are articles a problem? In English, life is easy; if you know what you want, you just use THE, and if you don\u2019t know what you want, you use A\/AN. It doesn\u2019t matter if that <\/span>thing<\/span><\/i> you want is a specific chair, book or apartment. You will, without thinking twice, be able to say<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI want <\/span>the<\/i><\/b> chair<\/span><\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span>with the fluffy pink unicorns on it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI want <\/span>the<\/i><\/b> book<\/span><\/span><\/span> that the cute guy with the blue shirt is reading.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

or<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI want <\/span>the<\/i><\/b> apartment<\/span><\/span><\/span> with the stunning rooftop view.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In English, you would use the same definite article \u201cthe\u201d in all three sentences. In German, however, nouns (i.e. <\/span>chair<\/span>, <\/span>book<\/span>, <\/span>apartment<\/span>) have different <\/span>grammatical<\/i><\/b> genders<\/b>. What\u2019s this \u201cgrammatical gender\u201d thing, you ask?<\/span><\/p>\n

German nouns have a gender<\/h2>\n

In German, words that refer to things, i.e. nouns (both tangible, like \u201cchair\u201d, and abstract, like \u201cfreedom\u201d) have a gender, either their natural, <\/span>biological<\/span><\/i>, gender (woman, man, daughter, son, etc.), or their <\/span>grammatical<\/span><\/i> gender, which means that the thing that the article refers to <\/span>does not have<\/span> a natural (biological) gender, but that the language <\/span>assigned<\/span><\/i> a gender to it nevertheless.<\/span><\/p>\n

Therefore, in German, the words from the above example also have genders, even though they do not originate from the characteristics of the object, but are assigned somewhat randomly. In German \u201cchair\u201d is masculine (<\/span>DER<\/b> <\/span><\/span>Stuhl<\/span><\/span>), \u201cbook\u201d is neuter (<\/span>DAS<\/b> <\/span><\/span>Buch<\/span><\/span>) and \u201capartment\u201d is feminine (<\/span>DIE<\/b> <\/span><\/span>Wohnung<\/span><\/span>). \u00a0The article <\/span>DIE<\/b> is also used to for the <\/span>plural<\/b>, irrespective of the singular gender, so <\/span><\/p>\n

the chairs = <\/span>DIE<\/b> St\u00fchle<\/span><\/p>\n

the books = <\/span>DIE<\/b> B\u00fccher<\/span><\/p>\n

the apartments = <\/span>DIE<\/b> Wohnungen.<\/span><\/p>\n

German definite articles table: der, die, das according to case and gender<\/h2>\n

Since German is a language that has cases, these articles change according to the grammatical case:<\/span><\/p>\n

\"German<\/p>\n

But, as you can see, there are similarities across genders and not all cases require different article forms. For example, the nominative\/accusative cases for feminine and plural nouns are the same, and the same goes for the masculine and the neuter dative and genitive.<\/span><\/p>\n

If you\u2019re a German beginner, this table might seem quite daunting. But, apart from grouping the article forms according to their similarity, there is one other thing you can do to make your life easier <\/span>\u2013 DROP THE GENITIVE CASE.<\/b> That\u2019s right; I just said you should ignore a whole case.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ignore the genitive if you’re just starting out<\/h2>\n

Why? Because pretty soon the genitive case will no longer be with us. It will be pushing up the daisies and joining the choir invisible, like in the Monty Python\u2019s Flying Circus \u201cDead Parrot\u201d sketch.<\/span><\/p>\n

There\u2019s even a highly amusing book devoted to this topic, written by <\/span>Bastian Sick<\/b><\/a> and entitled <\/span>\u201cThe Dative is to the Genitive its Death\u201d<\/span><\/i> (\u201cDer Dativ ist dem Genitiv sein Tod<\/a>\u201d<\/span><\/i>), which you should definitely have a look at once you can read books in German. \u00a0What this title essentially means is that even native German speakers often use the dative instead of the genitive case and that pretty soon the genitive will cease to be used. Even now, the genitive is something you learn in German language courses only when you reach level B1 (intermediate user), or thereabouts. To sum up, <\/span>you can have a pretty decent and grammatically correct conversation in German without ever using the genitive case. <\/b><\/p>\n

When to use which article, der, die, or das?<\/h2>\n

After we have grouped our articles together according to their declension like in the table above and eliminated the genitive, life seems a bit easier. However, there is still the huge elephant in the room <\/span>\u2013 how will you know when to use which article; DER, DIE or DAS?<\/b><\/p>\n

For nouns that have a biological gender, this is easy.<\/span><\/p>\n

Articles that follow the biological gender<\/b><\/h3>\n