Download German Grammar: Determining the Gender of Nouns - Prof. Brigitte Ebel and more Study notes German Philology in PDF only on Docsity! TIPS FOR LEARNING GENDER - der/die/das Nouns name persons, places, things, or ideas. They can occur accompanied by articles, and in German, nouns are coded or formatted masculine, feminine, or neuter, the corresponding articles being der, die, das. Nouns in German have grammatical gender. That is, the thing, the shoe - der Schuh, is not somehow a masculine thing. Rather, the word for Schuh is masculine and is given the article der and the pronoun er. A female dog is still referred to as der Hund - er, because the word for dog is a masculine word. A little girl, das Mädchen, es, is neuter, because “chen” is a neuter ending. All words ending in “chen” are neuter. Here are some helpful tips for determining the gender of German nouns: Gender of German Nouns - Masculine Names of the days, months and seasons Names of directions and winds Names of cars and trains Most nouns ending in -ich and -ling Most nouns ending in -ig (Exception: das Riesig) Most nouns ending in -el (Some Exceptions: die Bibel, die Insel, die Kartoffel, das Kapitel ) Most nouns ending in -en (Exceptions: all infinitives, das Examen, etc.) Nouns ending in -er, when they refer to people (exceptions: die Mutter, die Butter, das Poster) Gender of German Nouns - Feminine Names of cardinal numbers Most nouns ending in -e (exceptions: those with prefix Ge- and those denoting males) Nouns ending in -heit, -keit and -schaft Nouns ending in -in (persons only) Nouns ending in -ei (exceptions: nouns denoting a type of egg eg. das Spiegelei) Nouns ending in -ung Nouns of foreign words ending in -ade, -age, -anz, -enz, -ette, -ie, -ik, -ine, -ion, -isse, -itis, - ive, -tät and -ur Gender of German Nouns - Neuter Names of towns and countries (Exceptions: die Schweiz, die Turkei) Names of letters and musical notes Names of colours Infinitives used as nouns: das Schwimmen Most nouns starting with Ge- (Exceptions: der Geschmack, die Geburt, etc.) Most nouns ending in -chen and -lein Most nouns ending in -ment (Exceptions: der Moment, der Zement ) Most nouns ending in -nis (Exceptions: die Erlaubnis, die Erkenntnis, die Finsternis) Most nouns ending in -tum (Exceptions: der Irrtum, der Reichtum ) Most nouns ending in -um
