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Are there any tricks to German nouns? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| IronFist Senior Member United States Joined 6428 days ago 663 posts - 941 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Korean | Message 1 of 29 20 May 2012 at 9:26pm | IP Logged | ||
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One of the reasons I always say German is hard is because, in my experience, every noun's gender and plural form has to be memorized individually. To make matters worse, there are at least 5 ways to make a German noun plural (do nothing, add an -e, add an -en, add an umlaut, do two of these, etc.).
Compare that to Spanish where gender is obvious 99% of the time and making a word plural is easy. I remember one time I asked my German teacher (a native German), if there were any tricks, rules or shortcuts, to seeing a noun and either knowing its gender, or knowing how to make it plural. As much as I like German, having to memorize all of that information on a word by word basis sucks. I am lazy and like shortcuts. This was 10 years ago, but I seem to remember he said yes, there are rules, but then said that the rules are such that it's easier to just memorize each noun individually. I have no idea what he meant by that. German is on my "would like to learn it" list, but every time I think about it, I remember how much it sucked to learn the gender and plural rules for each noun. Are there any tricks? Shortcuts? Secret rules passed down from polyglots? Edited by IronFist on 20 May 2012 at 9:26pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4835 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 2 of 29 20 May 2012 at 10:09pm | IP Logged | ||
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Well, your teacher was right. There are rules to determine the gender of a certain percentage of the nouns, but they are so complicated that it is easier for a beginner to learn each noun individually.
For example, words with the suffixe "-ung" are always feminine (die Unterbrechung, die Verständigung), words with "-chen" are alway neuter (das Kaninchen), and words with "-ich" are always masculine (der Teppich). However, there are no rules for all nouns, especially not for those without suffixes, and even if there is a rule there might be exceptions. The same is true for forming the plural. Again, there are rules, but they are complicated and there may be exceptions. Examples: nouns ending in "-ig" take the plural ending "-e" (der König, die Könige), nouns ending in "-ei" take "-en" (die Bäckerei, die Bäckereien), and nouns with the suffix "-tum" take "-er" (der Irrtum, die Irrtümer). My Duden grammar book has a long list of rules both for gender and for plural, but I cannot post it here because it would be to long. My suggestion is: Always learn a noun with its article, then remembering its gender becomes easier. After a while, you will begin to see patterns and learning gender and plural endings will become easier. You have to learn genders even in French - and there are far worse languages than German. In Icelandic, you have to learn the gender of a noun, its genitive, and its plural, otherwise you won't be able to inflect it correctly. And even if you know all three, the dative still might surprise you sometimes... 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Kyle Corrie Senior Member United States Joined 4820 days ago 175 posts - 464 votes | Message 3 of 29 20 May 2012 at 10:09pm | IP Logged | ||
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When you're a native speaker of a language without genders, then German genders can
seem to be overwhelming in the beginning. However, my experience tells me that the articles are really not that hard to get a handle on if you simply just read, do workbooks, practice, anything... You may not believe it, but after a while you'll simply know the article without even thinking about it. However, there are some rules for endings. If a word ends in -chen then it's a diminutive and it is always 'das'. If it ends in - ung, -keit, -heit then it will always be feminine. All plurals are always 'die'. If it ends in an -e then it's probably feminine as well. (These of course pertain to the nominative case.) And so on... As I said though, don't try to to learn some word ending guideline that can only be applied 50% of the time. Just be sure to get a chat partner and write to them and NEVER guess at the article. If you don't know it, then look it up. I assure you that you'll be surprised this was even an issue after a few months of good study. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| HenryMW Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 5165 days ago 125 posts - 179 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, French Studies: Modern Hebrew | Message 4 of 29 20 May 2012 at 10:14pm | IP Logged | ||
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Edit- nevermind, two people beat me to the punch with better answers. Good luck with German. Edited by HenryMW on 20 May 2012 at 10:16pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6588 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 5 of 29 20 May 2012 at 10:47pm | IP Logged | ||
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I find it easier to remember the gender in the accusative. einen, eine and ein are more different syllable-wise than der, die, das. And yes, it does get easier with practice.
If you're very visual it's a good idea to write them on coloured paper and/or in different pens - blue, red/pink and green/purple/black (whatever feels right). 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6076 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin | Message 6 of 29 21 May 2012 at 12:38am | IP Logged | ||
I made a list about a year ago. It's pretty useful. Maybe you can use it to start your own list of words.
4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| IronFist Senior Member United States Joined 6428 days ago 663 posts - 941 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Korean | Message 7 of 29 21 May 2012 at 12:43am | IP Logged | ||
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Will a German understand you if you use the wrong article?
I mean like if you say "die Wein" when you mean "der Wein"? I can't imagine them getting confused but figure it would just sound like bad grammar to them. I can imagine it would get more complicated in more complex sentences where the articles determine parts of speech instead of word order and swapping a "das" and a "die" can change the meaning. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4835 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 8 of 29 21 May 2012 at 12:56am | IP Logged | ||
Yes, he (or she) will. You won't sound very educated, but you will be understood. Using one wrong article will not change the meaning of a sentence completely if the rest is grammatically correct. Word order in German is not that flexible. Instead, a native German will simply notice you used the wrong article and understand what you tried to say. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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