Unlike English, nouns in German have gender. This usually has nothing to do with actual physical gender, and can be thought of as simply three different types/colours/flavours.
Their distribution is as follows:
45.2% of nouns are feminine, designated by die
33.6% of nouns are masculine, designated by der
21.2% of nouns are neuter, designated by das
The gender of a noun affects which pronouns and adjective endings are used, so it’s important to learn them. You should always learn nouns along with their gender. This will make things much easier later on.
German nouns referring to male or female people or animals usually match their actual gender:
| der Vater masculine noun | the father |
| die Schwester feminine noun | the sister |
| die Lehrerin feminine noun | the (female) teacher |
| das Mädchen neuter noun (!) | the girl |
Nouns referring to objects have nothing to do with physical gender:
| der Sprung masculine | the jump |
| die Schrei feminine | the scream |
| das Universum neuter | the universe |
| die Gabel feminine | the fork |
| der Strand masculine | the beach |
gender rules and patterns
Even though you should always learn the gender along with the noun, there are some rules and patterns you can use to help you remember them.
Some of the rules are 100% reliable, but most have exceptions. You can use these rules as a guide, but usually the only way to be sure of a noun’s gender is to learn it. This also has the advantage that you can skip the rules entirely!
Words ending in -ung, -heit, –keit, –ei, –schaft, -ion, -ät are always feminine:
| die Zeitung | the newspaper |
| die Schönheit | the beauty |
| die Aufmerksamkeit | the attention, attentiveness |
| die Bäckerei | the bakery |
| die Freundschaft | the friendship |
| die Mission | the mission |
| die Elektrizität | the electricity |
Words ending in -er, -en, -ig, -ling, -us, -mus are nearly always masculine:
| der Bäcker | the baker |
| der Boden | the ground, the floor |
| der Käfig | the beetle |
| der Schmetterling | the butterfly |
| der Status | the status |
| der Organismus | the organism |
Words ending in -tum, -chen, -lein, -ment, -um are always neuter:
| das Datum | the date |
| das Mädchen | the girl |
| das Büchlein | the booklet, little book |
| das Fundament | the foundation |
| das Kalzium | the calcium |
Words referring to days of the week and seasons are masculine:
| der Montag, Dienstag, Mittwoch, Donnerstag, Freitag, Samstag, Sonntag | Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday |
| der Frühling, Sommer, Herbst, Winter | the spring, summer, autumn, winter |
Words beginning with Ge- are usually neuter:
| das Getreide | the crop, grain, corn |
| das Gebäude | the building |
| das Gehirn | the brain |
| der Geschmack (!) | the taste |
| die Geschichte (!) | the history |
Words ending in -e are usually feminine. This is a very useful rule since a lot of words end in -e, but there are also a lot of exceptions, so be careful.
| die Frage | the question |
| die Seite | the side, page |
| die Sprache | the language |
| die Liebe | the love |
| die Farbe | the colour |
| das Interesse (!) | the interest |
| das Ende (!) | the end |
| der Name (!) | the name |
One notable exception to the -e rule is for words referring to people and some male animals. These words are masculine:
| der Biologe | the (male) biologist |
| der Psychologe | the (male) psychologist |
| der Bulle | the bull |
| der Löwe | the lion |
Infinitives of verbs used as nouns are always neuter. You can always turn a verb into a noun in this way:
| das Schwimmen | swimming |
| das Radfahren | cycling |
| der Malen | painting |
| das Denken | thinking |