Masc. What are possessive adjectives in German? Adjectives play an important role in sentences. According to the table above, certain adjectival pronouns also decline like the definite article “der”: all-, dies-, jed-, manch-, solch-, welch-.These are sometimes referred to as der-words. Attribute adjectives aren’t the only ones you need to conjugate. If you really want to learn German grammar, I would like to recommend you to use creative learning aids for German as a foreign language. Example: Tata Nano ist das billigste Auto der Welt Tata Nano is the cheapest car in the world. Neut. Many textbooks try to totally avoid any tables and treat the adjective and several accompanying words only incidentally, in the hope that the students practice and learn the rules of the German adjective endings more or less unconsciously. This concept is very similar to the possessive pronouns. Learning German adjective endings requires repetition and practice. When in doubt, you can always just add an -e. German speakers will still understand you. I’m not surprised! Expressions for Sentence Building. If we look closely, we see that you just add "-e" or "-en". In German, these words share the same bases with possessive pronouns. For one-syllable adjectives, an umlaut is added, if applicable, as in the following: I hope this list of 250 (or 300 of you downloaded the PDF) will help broaden your German vocabulary. Declensions also change depending on whether the noun appears with a definite or an indefinite article. Students of German don’t want to simply learn the German adjective endings by heart, but they want to understand how it works. for students and teachers, © 2008 - 2016 by Peter Heinrich, easyDaF.de, When a German gets his hands on an adjective, he declines it, and keeps on, When this case-ending is not used by the accompanying word, it has to be used by the adjective. But in German, things are a little bit complicated. Basic Chart of Forms of der/das/die, ein-words, Pronouns Click the link for a PDF of the “Basic Chart” (also including the two-way prepositions) that will print on one page!. The general declension pattern is as shown in the following table: These are the endings the adjective receives when the noun it describes comes with a definite article. German adjectives. The noun that is being possessed is 'purse'. You know that in German a noun always uses a certain case (nominative, dative, etc.). The possessive adjective in the above sentence is meinen (my). Adjectival possessive pronouns and “kein” (none) decline similarly to the article “ein”, they can be referred to as ein-words. The weak declension is used when: 1. the definite articles (der, die, das) or the pronouns: 1. dieser (this) 2. jener (that) 3. derjenige (that one) 4. derselbe (the same) 5. welcher (which) or declined indicators of quantity: 1. jeder (every) 2. mancher (some) 3. alle (all) come before the adjective and the adjective before the noun. And the textbooks most of the time don’t contain any better ideas. In the following, I’d like to show you a table with the most common irregular superlatives and comparatives. When you study German attributive adjective endings, you can’t escape cases because grammatical cases are an integral part of the German adjective use. Learning German Grammar But, what happens when you’re comparing two nouns to each other? They are also used by the demonstrative pronouns (dieser, dieses…), and often as well by the indefinite articles (ein, eine …) and sometimes by the possessive pronouns (mein, dein, sein…). They can also be used by the adjectives. And eventually, you'll develop a feeling for the right ending. The possessive pronoun mein doesn’t always have a case-ending, for instance not in the nominative with a masculine noun: You’re guaranteed that you will learn this and many, many other problems of the German grammar, in a much easier way with the new standard work for the learning of German grammar:Learn German grammar with mnemonics –The Deutsch-Elfe® Package! Well, that´s what I think, at least :). There are some exceptions for these rules, but the majority of adjectives can be made comparative in this way: German superlative adjectives are also somewhat similar to their English counterparts. And every time there is no case-ending in the words which precede the adjective, there has to be a case-ending. Here you have an overview of the most important German adjectives with English translations, accompanied by their They can also be singular or plural. Fem. : Possessive adjectives are used to indicate possession or relationship. The adjective endings -en, -e, and -es correspond to the articles den, die, and das respectively (masc., fem., and neuter). Learn the most important German adjectives and learn how to use German adjectives in simple sentences. As we already know, German nouns can be masculine, feminine, or neuter. So, with these in your pocket, you can learn to speak exactly like them. must have declensions in order to use them! These exercises will help you practice the use of adjectives within a sentence. The BBC has created an easy-to-use table of German adjective … They include opposites (such as "groà " (big) and "klein" (small)), as well as comparative and superlative adjectives, which change the form or the stem of the words for the comparative and superlative forms. They modify the subject and do not have a gendered ending. In the video I explain, how the table works an how you can use it immediately in you German lessons. To make sure you get the difference, have a look at the following table. From this arises the first of both the principles for the declension of the adjective: „Huh?“OK, that was a bit too abstract, so here’s an example for the …. German adjectives that come after the noun are not declined/inflected and often separated from the noun by a form of sein (to be) like: ist (is) if the noun is in a singular form or sind (are) if the noun is in the plural form. Possessive adjectives are the words my, your, his, her, its, our and their. To form these words, you simply change the first letter into a capital letter and you add a definite and indefinite article. Strong weak and mixed declension of German adjectives in three simple rules with tables. German adjectives come before the noun, as in English, and (usually) are not capitalized. Let’s take a look at a couple of examples of comparative and superlative German adjectives, and how the endings change according to the rules of grammar. First you need to select the correct possessive adjective, which in this sentence is 'my' and in German that is mein. And once you have understood, it’s very easy to learn that bit by heart – if you use a good memory technique …. These case-endings are sometimes also used by other accompanying words, we call them then strong endings. “Als” in the example is “than”. Of course, there are differences to the table before, so study that table carefully. German adjectives must always agree in quantity and gender with the nouns they modify. If an adjective follows the possessive article, the adjective receives the following endings: Additionally, you have to keep in mind that in German, in contrast to English, you can not put forms like more or most in front of your adjective to form a German superlative and comparative. Adjectival Pronouns in German. with Mnemonics - it’s dumb). The table provides an overview of adjective endings for the declension\inflection of German attributive adjectives. However, as in French and other Indo-European languages (but not English), they are generally inflected when they come before a noun: they take an ending that depends on the gender and case of the noun phrase. >> Click here to download the table for FREE. Know Which Adjective You Need. Akk -en -e -es… Adjectives are the words you use to describe everything. Most of the time, when the adjective needs to be declined, it’s just ‘e’ after after … Adjectives are an important part of any language such as German. Your Essential Guide to German Adjectives, German Dialects: Discover 8 Different Accents, 10 Major Differences Between German vs English, How German Immersion Works Outside of a Course. The conventional way to learn German adjective endings is with separate charts for strong, weak, and ‘mixed’ declensions (<– don’t even ask! possessive determiner (mein…) *Adjectives that come after the following words are declined exactly the same as after the definite article: derselbe, dieser, jener, mancher, solcher, welcher, alle. The accusative case follows certain verbs and prepositions. Most superlatives are formed by adding the suffix -ste. We’re here to help make the journey a bit easier. Although grammar can be boring, this part of German is definitely not. The dog is big and brown. Each personal pronoun has an appropriate possessive adjective. Sooner or later, some tables are given all the same, – although most of the time they are very unmethodical. Apronus Home | Language | Learn German We use Google cookies to analyze traffic. Strong endings always indicate the case! ), or any ein-word with an ending (eine, einen, einem, keine, So decide the noun's gender. But, you’ll actually learn them very quickly. That’s exactly how OptiLingo teaches you German. When the nouns the adjective represents comes with an indefinite article, these are the endings you have to use. Pay attention to all the little details when conjugating German adjectives, it’s easy to overlook them. Nom -er -e -es. If the adjective is accompanied by a noun (the attributive form) am is not used. So don't give up on your German learning dreams just because of some pesky grammar! There are two types of descriptive adjectives in German: predicate and attribute. That’s when you use comparative and superlative adjectives in German. The big brown dog barked at me. For students AND teachers of German grammar. This is called weak declension because the case marker is not carried by the adjective but rather particle before it. These are “der”, “die”, or “das”. When adding the -er, if the vowel in the adjective is an a, o, or u, you give it an umlaut (unless it is “au”). Attribute adjectives precede nouns or pronouns and take special endings determined by the gender, number, case and article of the nouns they modify. That’s why it’s so important to master adjectives in German. organized as a table or list; calculated by means of a table (geology) tending to split into thin flat pieces, such as slate; Synonyms: 1. Articles, pronouns and nouns have to be declined in the accusative. German adjectives work just like English ones, except that they take on case endings when they come right before a noun: Der Hund ist groß und braun. These are sometimes referred to as der-words. German Adjective Endings Three Simple Rules of Declension Strong declension: The rule of … But who can memorize this? Once you notice the parallel and the agreement of the letters n , e , s with den , die , das , it makes the process a little clearer. The "hard" case endings are highlighted in yellow in these tables, and the “soft” adjective endings are underlined. (der, die, das …) German adjective declension is really not that complicated most of the time, and I say that as a native English speaker for whom declension was once a totally alien concept. In German, you need to conjugate an adjective to fit the noun. What is a substantivized adjective in German? This chapter will deal with the possessive form of adjectives. They are used to describe places, people and objects. Declension of German words. Examples of comparative adjectives and superlative adjectives in German would be: Like in English, most regular German adjectives are made comparative by adding the suffix “-er”. Now, we will take a look at the German adjective endings for adjectives that describe nouns with indefinite articles. German adjectives with all their potential endings, irregularities, and umlauts can seem daunting. OptiLingo is the app that can get you to German fluency fast. Attributive Adjective. To learn new German words painlessly, check out our e-book German Short Stories with Audio. Then put your knowledge to the test in the free exercises. German Adjective Endings for Nouns with an indefinite Article. Here’s a fun and easy guide to German adjectives. Irregular adjectives In my FREE Video-Course "German Grammar for your Brain". To show all declination forms, forms of comparison and the grammatical features, simply enter any noun or adjective in the input field of the declinator. These declensions vary based on the noun’s case, gender, and plurality. Every time I had to teach German adjective endings I was really happy that I had already learned it naturally as a child; so, today I „just know“ how it works. Tables about comparison and declension of many German adjectives. You know, that the definite article does not always precedes the noun, it can be another accompanying word or sometimes there isn’t even an accompanying word or article at all. His and Hers: 3 Steps to Nailing German Possessive Adjectives. She managed to integrate adjective and article declinations in only one table. The famous writer Mark Twain used to make fun of the phenomenon of German adjective endings. German adjectives describe or modify a noun. Decline more 130,000 German nouns, adjectives, articles and pronouns.You can look for all forms of the declination of German words in tables. Accusative feminine and neutral: The possessive article (same like the definite article) keeps the basic form. Adjectival Nouns in German: Because German adjective endings carry considerable information about case, gender, and number, the noun that they modify can sometimes seem redundant. In German it is possible to form nouns out of adjectives or verbs: these are the substantivized adjectives or verbs.