A noun is a word referring to a person, place, thing, event, substance, or quality.
Tree, party, agreement, baker, destruction, water, beauty, Berlin, sausage, mustard, idea, feeling, friend – all nouns.
German has nouns to! Lots of them in fact.
Gender (noun types)
Unlike English, German has three types of noun. They are referred to as genders, but it’s much easier to think of them as types.
These are masculine, feminine and neuter.
der Baum – the tree (masculine) die Schönheit – the beauty (feminine) das Wasser – the water (neuter)
The articles – der/die/das – are like the in English. In German, they indicate the gender (type!) of the noun.
der is masculine
die is feminine
das is neuter.
Don’t think of them like real genders. A tree isn’t really a boy. Just think of them as types. It’s like when we talk about a ship and say “She’s a mighty vessel!” Everyone knows the ship isn’t a girl.
In German it’s like that for every noun! People say “he’s a mighty fine tree!” or “I like sitting under him – he’s very shady!”
You have to learn the type for every single noun. This isn’t as difficult as it sounds!
There are a lot of rules and tricks for knowing a noun’s gender, but the safest way is to remember the word with the article. That’s why we write der Baum and not just Baum.
Let’s look at some example sentences.
Der Mann ist groß. The man is tall. Die Frau ist schön. The woman is beautiful. Das Kind ist sehr jung. The child is very young.
Pronouns
A noun’s type determines which pronouns we need to use with it. A pronouns is a word that refers to a noun you just mentioned, such as he/she/it.
The ship is huge. She is a mighty vessel indeed!
What a lovely tree. It‘s so green!
In these sentences she refers to the ship and it refers to the tree. Got it?
It’s exactly the same in German!
er is masculine (he) sie is feminine (she) es is neuter (it)
Der Mann ist groß. Er ist groß.
The man is tall. He is tall.
Die Frau ist schön. Sie ist schön.
The woman is beautiful. She is beautiful.
Das Kind ist sehr jung. Es ist sehr jung.
The child is very young. It is very young.
Notice how the pronouns er/sie/es are very similar to der/die/das – that’s not an accident!
Articles (a/the)
In English, we can choose between saying the ship or a ship.
These small words added before nouns are called articles.
The is a ‘definite article‘, and a is an ‘indefinite article‘.
A ship refers to a hypothetical ship. A ship that we haven’t mentioned before in the conversation or context.
Whereas the ship refers to a specific ship within the context or conversation.
Last year I went on a voyage on a ship!
Cool…. tell me about it! What was it like on the ship???
The good news is that it’s almost identical in German. Where you would say the ship, you say das Schiff, and where you would say a ship you say ein Schiff.
Just as there are three words for the (der/die/das), there are three words for a (ein, eine, ein).
der Baum / ein Baum
the tree / a tree
die Katze / eine Katze
the cat / a cat
das Auto / ein Auto
the car / a car
Notice how the indefinite articles for der and das are the same.
This is because neuter and masculine are often pretty similar due to historical reasons.
It’s not important to understand why different nouns behave differently and why they have gender. There is no logic to it. It developed naturally over time and this is just how people communicate now.
Summary
- Nouns refer to people, places, things, events, substances or qualities.
- German has three types of noun – masculine, feminine and neuter (der/die/das).
- There are some rules for knowing the gender, but the best way is to always learn nouns with their gender.
- Pronouns replace nouns and refer to them. He/she/it = er/sie/es.
- Er goes with der, sie goes with die and es goes with das.
- Articles are definite (the ship) or indefinite (a ship).
- Ein goes with der and das, and eine goes with die.
Congratulations. You now know the basics about German nouns!