shadowzoid Groupie United States Joined 5523 days ago 76 posts - 85 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Russian
| Message 1 of 3 21 May 2009 at 3:33am | IP Logged |
whats the difference between Kein, Keine, and Keinen
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josht Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6286 days ago 635 posts - 857 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Spanish, Russian, Dutch
| Message 2 of 3 21 May 2009 at 3:41am | IP Logged |
In short, it's a matter of declension; "kein" (no, none) declines mostly like the indefinite article "ein." Kein is the mascuine nominative, keine is the feminine nominative and accusative (as well as the plural nominative and accusative), and keinen is the masculine accusative and the dative plural.
There are other forms, and you'll need to learn all of them. They can be found here:
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/kein
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LanguageGeek Triglot Senior Member GermanyRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5947 days ago 151 posts - 159 votes 4 sounds Speaks: German*, English, Hungarian Studies: French, Russian
| Message 3 of 3 21 May 2009 at 8:29am | IP Logged |
Don't forger that there is also "Keiner" It can be dative/accusative feminine as in
"Man(n) kann es keiner Frau recht machen"
This sentence means "One cannot get it right for women" and " Men cannot get it right for women" simultaneously, because of the "Man(n)" in parenthesis ;)
"Keiner" also means nobody as in "Keiner kann mir die deutsche Grammatik erklären"
"Nobody can explain German grammar to me"
I suggest you occasionally glance over a German grammar, but don't learn this by rote. It will sink in after lots of reading practice and listen a lot too.
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