EN: Learn German Definite Articles

der Löffel, die Gabel und das Messer

In his essay "The Awful German language" Mark Twain wrote that in German “Every noun has a gender, and there is no sense or system in distribution; so the gender of each must be learned separately and by heart. There is no other way. " I agree fully. In case you want to learn German properly, there is only one solution: to learn the definite article der, die, or das together with each new noun.

Let us now focus on the positive side: there are quite a number of endings which almost exclusively indicate a certain gender. To learn these are and which gender they have, you can take the help of the following nonsense words:

• Der Iglingorismus 
• Die Heitungkeiteischafttiontätik 
• Das Tumchenmamentumlein 

As you already might understand they remind us that the endings –ig, -ling, -or och –smus är maskulina: der Käfig (the cage), der Erdling (the earthling), der Äquator (the equator) och der Liberalismus (the liberalism) indicate that a word is masculine.

The endings –heit, -ung, -keit, -schaft, -tion, -tät och –ik hör suggest that the word is feminine: die Freiheit (the freedom), die Bildung (the education/the forming), die Geschwindigkeit (the speed), die Eigenschaft (the feature/property), die Kommunikation (the communication), die Universtät (the university) and die Ästhetik (the aesthetics).

Finally, words with suffixes -tum, -chen, -ma, -ment, -um and -lein belong to the neuter gender: das Eigentum (the property), das Mädchen (the girl), das Thema (the theme), das Abonnement (the subscription), das Album (the album) and das Fräulein (the miss/young lady).

I hope to have helped you a little step forward on your way to learn German.

By the way: When I searchred for example words I began with the ending -tum and spontaneously thought of Reichtum (wealth). Wealth (der Reichtum) turned out to be masculine. Perhaps Mark Twain was right, after all... ;)

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Inspiration: EasyDaF.de

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