German Articles, Definite and Indefinite Articles.

If you don’t know it yet articles in German change depending on the case used in the sentences. If you’re not familiar with that then please check the German Cases page before proceeding to this page.

German Definite Articles

The definite articles in German refer to specific persons, objects, ideas…etc. and they are : der, die, das, die (plural) they all mean the expression “the” in English, der is used for masculine nouns, die is used for feminine nouns, das is used for neuter nouns, and finally die used also for plural nouns.

German Definite Article
Masculine	der Mann (the man)
Feminine	die Frau (the woman)
Neuter	das Brot (the bread)
Plural	die Männer (the men), die Frauen (the women), die Brote (the breads)

Well, that’s not all; the form we went through above is only for the nominative case. Now let’s have a look at all the rest:

German Definite Articles
	masculine	feminine	neuter	plural
Nominative case	der	die	das	die	the
Accusative case	den	die	das	die	the
Dative case	dem	der	dem	den	to the
Genitive cases	des	der	des	der	of the

Here are some examples:

Nominative: der Mann ist hier (the man is here)

Accusative: Ich grüße den Mann (I greet the man)

Dative: Ich gebe dem Mann ein Buch (I give the book to the man)

Genitive: Ich habe das Buch des Mannes (I have the book of the man)

You may have noticed how the definite article changes each time the case changes. So try to memorize the table above by heart, I’m sure it’s not that hard.

German Indefinite Articles

The indefinite articles in German refer to unspecified persons, objects, ideas…etc. and they are: ein, eine, ein, they all mean the indefinite article “a, an” in English, ein is used for masculine nouns, eine is used for feminine nouns, ein is used for neuter nouns, and there is no plural for the indefinite article.

German Indefinite Article
Masculine	ein Mann (a man)
Feminine	eine Frau (the woman)
Neuter	ein Brot (a bread)

Again, that’s not all; the form we went through above is only for the nominative case. Now let’s have a look at all the rest:

German Indefinite Articles
	masculine	feminine	neuter
Nominative case	ein	eine	ein	a, an
Accusative case	einen	eine	ein	a, an
Dative case	einem	einer	einem	to a, to an
Genitive cases	eines	einer	eines	of a, of an

Here are some examples:

Nominative: ein Mann ist hier (a man is here)

Accusative: Ich grüße einen Mann (I greet a man)

Dative: Ich gebe einem Mann ein Buch (I give the book to a man)

Genitive: Ich habe das Buch eines Mannes (I have the book of a man)

So the same thing happens to the indefinite article, it changes each time the case changes. So try to memorize the table above by heart as well. Good luck!

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