Lesson 10: Der, die, das: the article and Nominativ
The article in German stands just in front of nouns, like in English. However, in English, we always use ‘the‘ for the definite article (‘a’, the indefinite article, we’ll see in another lecture). The car, the road, the table. Even in the plural, it stays the cars, the roads, the tables.
In German, it’s different. Every noun has a gender, just like in English. But unlike in English, the nouns adapt to the gender. It’s der Mann, obviously male, and die Frau, obviously female. On top of that, there’s a third gender: the asexual gender, for example das Jahr.
However, don’t over-focus on the articles. Germans will understand you if you say der Jahr. For now, it is important to know that there is a gender, and it’s great if you know the gender of the vocabulary we’ve seen. Especially for the words you use a lot.
What you should know though is that the plural takes the form die. It’s die Männer, die Frauen and die Jahre. It’s the same as for the female in the singular.
A last but lengthy and difficult point to end this grammar lecture: in German, like in Latin, there are so-called cases. It means that the articles’, the adjectives’, the prepositions’ and sometimes the nouns’ endings change according to their function in the sentence.
It is one of the main difficulties English speakers learning German to get these cases right. Don’t worry, we’ll see them one by one. We’ve seen the article here above in the Nominativ. So it’s der, die, das, die for male, female, asexual and plural. The nouns don’t change (adjectives and prepositions in later lessons) in the Nominativ case.
This case is used for the subjects of the sentence. For example, in the previous sentence, ‘this case’ is the subject of the sentence. It’s the noun that does the action of the verb. You can find it by asking the question: who or what did the action of the sentence?
Now, an additional use is for verbs like to be (sein), to become, to be named (heißen), to remain, to feel like… Because the subject of the sentence is closely related to the direct object of the sentence. How can you find the direct object in a sentence? By asking what/who was the object of the subject’s actions.
For example: the cat eats the dog. (that’s unlikely, but well…). Who/what did the action of the sentence? The cat. It was the cat who ate. What/who was the object of the subject’s (= the cat) actions? The dog. It was the object of the cat’s eating.
Now, if you use to be: ‘I am a teacher’. The teacher isn’t really the object. Because the object (a teacher) is the subject (I). So in German, we’re going to use the Nominativ for both I and a teacher. In the other cases, we’re going to use another case (not the Nominativ). We’ll keep that for another lesson. It’s already a lot to take.
Let’s do some exercises to make sure you understand the difference between subject and direct object.
Exercises
Underline the Nominativs in the sentences:
- Der Mann duzt das Kind.
Wir setzen die Menschen hier.
Er ist der Mann.
Mein Name ist Hans.
Aber bekommen wir Ausweise?
Sie heißt Ulrike.
Franz findet die Rechnung.
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Solutions:
- Der Mann duzt das Kind.
Wir setzen die Menschen hier.
Er ist der Mann.
Mein Name ist Hans.
Aber bekommen wir Ausweise?
Sie heißt Ulrike.
Franz findet die Rechnung.
Don’t let yourself be fooled by thinking that der, die and das are always in the Nominativ case! Sometimes, they’re not. Also, sometimes there are no articles for the Nominativ!