Lesson 3: Introduction to Articles and Nouns in German

3.1 Der, die, das: the Many German Words for the

Details are important to Germans. In fact the proverbial good eye of Germans for details makes for fantastic engineering, and the many words for the are no exception.

Here's a reassuring rule for you: all nouns in German are capitalized.

Take a look at the table below:

der, die, das, die

der Löffel	the spoon
die Gabel	the fork
das Messer	the knife
die Servietten	the napkins

Did you catch the details right away?

Der means the. Die means the. Das means the. Die means the for a plural item like napkins, too.

Each of these words means the, however they all do different jobs, which we will continue to cover in other lessons.

Just like a spoon is good for eating soup, a fork for stabbing a slice of carrot, and a knife for cutting a potato, der, die, das are used in specific ways.

Frequently you may hear der, die, and das referred to like this, as genders:

der	masculine
die	feminine
das	neuter
die	plural

However it’s preferable to think of them not as genders but as groups, similar to how you might group your spoons together, next to the group of forks, next to the group of knives.

(In German, the actual genders of masculine or feminine can only refer to people. When it comes to objects, they have no true gender whatsoever. There is nothing feminine about a fork and nothing masculine about a spoon.)

That's why we suggest you think of them as groups.

3.2 Der, die, das in the News

Now let's take a look at a handful of words you might see in the news, so you can begin to build a larger grouping of der, die, das words in your mind.

Words with der

der Mord	murder
der Besuch	visit
der Anschlag	attack/strike
der Krieg	war
der Computer	computer

Words with die

die Hitze	heat
die Ärztin	doctor (female)
die Umwelt	environment
die Familie	family
die Energie	energy

Words with das

das Land	country
das Gericht	court
das Geld	money
das Kino	movie theater
das Ziel	goal

3.3 Plural Forms: Always die

As luck would have it, for the group of plural items like the napkins, die Servietten, the article is always die! Whether you talk about two napkins, four plates, or six tables, they will always use die. It's the same with the first noun you learned here, the plural die Nachrichten.

You can count on the plural article die throughout all of your German learning.

Now to the part that requires practice: There are different plural forms for different German nouns.

As English speakers, we are already familiar with inconsistent plural forms:

English singular and plural forms:

one car	one sheep	one bus	one city	one thief
two cars	two sheep	two buses	two cities	two thieves

Similarly in German, we have various plural forms. Here you will see how German nouns change when they go from singular to plural.

Where you see -e or -s, that means add an 'e' or an 's' to the end, and where you see ", that means you need to add an Umlaut.

(Note: When German nouns change from singular to plural, they do not correlate to any der/die/das groupings. Simply put, plural forms are a mixed bag. However, over time and with repetition, you will start to develop a sense for how a singular noun becomes plural.)

In the table below, you'll see eight possible ways that nouns change from singular to plural.

German singular and plural forms [in two parts]

Plural noun ending:	-e	-"-e	-s	-n
Singular:	der Mord	der Anschlag	das Kino	die Energie
Plural:	die Morde	die Anschläge	die Kinos	die Energien

Plural noun ending:	-er	-"-er	-(n)en	-
Singular:	das Geld	das Land	die Ärztin	der Computer
Plural:	die Gelder	die Länder	die Ärztinnen	die Computer

There is one more, however it is rarely used, so simply note these:

der Apfel, die Äpfel = the apple, the applesder Arzt, die Ärzte = the (male) doctor, the (male) doctors
Note: The form of doctor is different for female vs. male: die Ärztin, der Arzt.

Do keep in mind that even though the plural noun forms are different, the plural article die is your constant.