GermanFluent

A1 · Noun gender

der, die, das

the three definite articles: der, die, das

FormArtikel (der / die / das) + Nomen

Meaning and usage

Every German noun has a gender: masculine, feminine or neuter. You see it in the article: der Mann, die Frau, das Kind. The article changes with case, so the form der belongs to the nominative masculine, and die to the nominative feminine and to the nominative and accusative plural. Learn each noun together with its article, because the gender of a noun is not free: it is a fixed part of the word.

Meaning helps in some groups: male people and animals are usually masculine (der Vater, der Löwe) and female ones usually feminine (die Mutter, die Katze). But many nouns follow no meaning rule at all, so das Mädchen is neuter and der Tisch is masculine. Learners often guess one article for everything, or use die for all plural nouns in every case. Learn the article as part of the noun.

Examples 5

Test yourself

  1. 1 Sprachbausteine

    Wasser ist kalt.

    Show answer

    Correct answer: Das

    Wasser is a neuter noun, so the nominative article is das. The other forms do not match the gender of this noun.

    • der is the nominative masculine article, and Wasser is not masculine.
    • den is the accusative masculine article, and Wasser is neither masculine nor in the accusative here.
    • die is the nominative feminine article, and Wasser is not feminine.

In this topic: Noun gender

  1. der, die, das the three definite articles: der, die, das
  2. ein, eine a or an: ein, eine
  3. die: -ung, -heit, -keit Nouns in -ung, -heit, -keit are usually feminine
  4. die: nouns in -e Most nouns ending in -e are feminine
  5. der: Tage, Monate, Jahreszeiten Days, months, seasons and weather words take der
  6. das: -chen, das Essen Diminutives in -chen and -lein are neuter
  7. die Haustür Compound nouns take the gender of their last part

Example sentences from Tatoeba, used under CC BY 2.0 FR. See sources.