Deutsch: Lesson 2

[Ikkarus]

I thought it important to address articles (or die Geschlechtswörter, literally "sex words") before I could move on into accusative or ablative or anything else in a sentence; they play a huge role. English of course does not have these, short of "a" (indefinite) or "the" (definite) and since there is no gender or concern for cases, they do not change. Deutsch, on the other hand, has certain articles for certain genders, and these change depending on whether the nouns are nominative (Nominativ), accusative (Akkusativ), indirect/dative (Dativ), or possesive (Genitiv). There are 3 genders for Deutsch words, like many other languages: there is masculine (Maskulinum), feminine (Femininum), and neuter (Neutrum - pronounced "noitrum") nouns. Really, we would be describing them as männlich (masculine or manly), weiblich (feminine or womanly), and sächlich (neuter...ly) nouns, but they do not look too much like anything from English, so I am not going to use them. There is also a class of declension for plural words, regardless of gender. For the nominative case, or the subject of the sentence, you have three basic articles, plus one for plural words:

 

Nominativ

Maskulinum - der

Femininum - die (pronounced "dee" if we remember my earlier note)

Neutrum - das

Plural - die (same as the feminine, but just examine the word to see if it is plural)

 

For example:

 

Maskulinum - der Mann (the man)

Femininum - die Blume (the flower)

Neutrum - das Reich (the empire)

Plural - die Kinder (the children - singular is das Kind - I will discuss plurals later)

 

I always found it funny, Robert Jordan's use of "der." So, instead of a Sul'dam, we have THE Sul'dam with Der'sul'dam. Of course, that was not what he meant, but I cannot help seeing it.

 

You must always have an article before words that do not indicate a specific person, place, or there must be one in front of ones lacking adjectives. Otherwise...you are wrong. UNFORTUNATELY, there is no rule to what indicates the gender of a noun - so you will mostly have to MEMORIZE. There is one generalization we can make - a lot of nouns that end in "e" are feminine or plural, but do NOT rely on this rule, as there are MANY exceptions. There is not too much correlation between the nature of the word and what determines its gender, either. After all, the word apple in Deutsch somehow is considered masculine (der Apfel), and the word for girl is considered neuter (das Mädchen). Do not worry if you mix up articles for the various nouns you come across - you would be surprised how many Deutsche forget or ignore the Artikel and just use "die" or something.

 

For accusative nouns, only one article changes:

 

Akkusativ

Maskulinum - den

Femininum - die

Neutrum - das

Plural - die

 

So really, with accusative, you only have to worry about the change in a masculine noun's article. Dativ, or the indirect object, is not so lucky:

 

Dativ

Maskulinum - dem

Femininum - der

Neutrum - dem (watch out! It is the same as the masculine here!)

Plural - den

 

And Genitiv is different, but remember it is useful. If you make the article of a word that is possessing something genitive, you do not have to make use of possessive words. Like "Das Rad der Zeit," we know the "der" in front of feminine "Zeit" (Time) must be genitive and therefore acts as "of." So, we get "The Wheel of Time). Here are the genitive articles:

 

Genitiv

Maskulinum - des

Femininum - der

Neutrum - des (same again as the masculine)

Plural - der (same as feminine)

 

So if I wanted to say, "The top of the mountain," (top being masculine "Gipfel" and mountain being masculine "Berg"):

Der Gipfel des Berg - The Peak of the Mountain

 

Or "The empire of the empress," (empire, if you remember further up, being neuter "Reich" and empress being feminine "Kaiserin"):

Das Reich der Kaiserin - The Empire of the Empress

 

Or, "The color of dragon's blood," (color being feminine "Farbe", and dragon's blood being actually one neuter word "Drachenblut"):

Die Farbe des Drachenblut - The Color of the Dragon's Blood

 

And for plural, "The works (crafts) of humans," (works being actually singular neuter in "Kunsthandwerk," and humans being plural "Menschen"):

Das Kunsthandwerk der Menschen - The artistic Craftwork(s) of Humans

 

If this had been in the accusative portion of the sentence or the dative, the article on the first noun would have to change and not the genitive word.

 

NOTE: In Deutsch, all nouns that are not pronouns are capitalized, even in the middle of the sentence - except for a tiny amount of exceptions !

 

I will post the indefinite articles, the equivalent to "a" later; since we got through this, there will be no problems with those. If you do not know the difference between accusative and dative and the other cases, which I know there are some people in America who do not for their own language...uh, you are on your own .

[Guest BaLefireP]

I still have no idea. =(

[Ikkarus]

Well, I know I might be a little choppy; I am not especially a teacher. Is there anything I can help you with ?

[charis sedai]

I'm taking German 201 this fall- this is a really good review! Thanks!!

[Guest BaLefireP]

Well, I know I might be a little choppy; I am not especially a teacher. Is there anything I can help you with ?

I have no idea, my main problem is that I just tend to suck at pronunciation.