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German articles
In German you need to learn any noun with it's article. In English you use either The for definite stuff or A/An for indefinite things. That so easy there is not so irregularity on that. But in German we have to learn a noun with its special article which can be one of these Das,Der and Das. There is no rule and the rule is irregularity. This been mentioned we can somehow compare the level of hardness with learning Kanji.
Do you have any idea how can one overcome this significant obstacle?
Appreciate it,
May 23, 2020 11:39 AM
Comments · 7
There are many rules for the articles in German and if you know them it'll be much easier to know the correct article for most of the words and then you only need to memorise the ones that are seemingly illogic and the exceptions.
Here are a few examples:
word ending
masculine: -er (Lehrer, Herrscher), -ling (Schmetterling, Lehrling)
feminine: -e (Ente, Ausnahme), -ung (Endung, Befragung), -keit/-heit (Machbarkeit, Freiheit), -in (Lehrerin)
neuter: -o (Kino, Radio), -ma (Dilemma, Thema), -um (Forum, Stadium), -chen (Mädchen, Herrchen)
"type" of thing
masculine: months (Januar, April), days (Montag, Mittwoch), times of the day (Morgen, Mittag, Abend), winds (Orkan, Taifun, Monsun), precipitation (Regen, Schnee, Hagel)
feminine: tree (Eiche, Kiefer), numbers (Eins, Zwei)
neuter: metal (Gold, Blei, Silber), letters of the alphabet (A, B)
Here you can find some more rules:
https://www.thoughtco.com/masculine-feminine-or-nueter-in-german-4068442 (This list is quite extensive but unfortunately they wrongly write nouns with small letters instead capital letters. I only share it, so you can get a gist of the rules.)
May 23, 2020
Hallo! Es ist sehr wichtig, jedes neues Wort mit seinem bestimmten Artikel zu lernen.
Hi! It's very important to learn each new noun you learn with its article.
Viele Grüsse.
Greetings!
May 23, 2020
As a native, it is something I simply "know". However, after some time not speaking German, I also forget some articles and use the wrong ones. While I wish I could give you a shortcut, there are certain aspects of every language that you can only learn through repeated exposure to and practice of the language. The only advice I can offer is to listen and speak as much German as is possible for you. At some point it just sticks and it just "feels right" to use a certain article. Don't be afraid to get them wrong, like I said, I also get them wrong sometimes even though I grew up speaking the German (also some nouns can be used with two different articles so more chances of getting it right :) e.g Joghurt (der/das depending on the region))
May 23, 2020
German words can even change their meaning when you change their gender/article: der See, die See.
May 24, 2020
@Pedro, Das ist richtig Kumpel. Und ich versuche Wege zu finden, das zu tun. Vielen Danke
May 24, 2020
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