Einheit 2.2 (online)
Mehr Gegenstände im Seminarraum. Here are more items in the classroom or your home office. Learn these words as you will need them in the upcoming activities.
Übung 1. Drag the noun to the correct article. Review the vocabulary learned in Einheit 2.1 before you begin this activity.
Grammatik
Definite and Indefinite Articles
German uses three definite articles, “der” (masculine), “die” (feminine), or “das” (neuter), all meaning “the”, to show the gender of a noun. As we recommended in Einheit 1.10, we strongly encourage you to memorize the corresponding definite article with each new noun you learn.
There are also indefinite articles in German, meaning “a” or “an” in English, for the three grammatical genders: “ein” (masculine), “eine” (feminine), and “ein” (neuter). Obviously, there is no indefinite article for the plural (just like in English, you couldn’t say “a books”).
| Singular | Plural | |
| masculine | der Tisch
ein Tisch |
die Tische
Tische |
| feminine | die Lampe
eine Lampe |
die Lampen
Lampen |
| neuter | das Buch
ein Buch |
die Bücher
Bücher |
der (m.) –> ein die (f.) –> eine das (n.) –> ein die (pl.) –> ∅
*ACHTUNG*
In German, when stating someone’s nationality, place of residence or occupation no indefinite article is used.
Fatih Akin ist Deutscher. Fatih Akin is a German.
Maren ist Studentin. Maren is a student.
Ich bin Berliner. I am a Berliner.
[Remember when J.F. Kennedy visited Berlin in 1963, he said: “Ich bin ein Berliner.” Had he learned German with us, he would have known not to use the indefinite article. Literally, he said “I’m a jelly donut”. However, the historical significance of his statement, though not entirely correct, was not lost on the people of Berlin.]
Übung 2. Time to practice the definite and indefinite articles. Have you memorized the gender of the nouns we have been learning? (Reminder: If you get it wrong you can correct it right away. Just continue typing in the “red” box to make your correction.)
Grammatik
Negation with “kein”
There are several ways to express negation in German. Look at the following three sentences:
Ist das ein Tisch? Nein, das ist kein Tisch.
Ist das eine Lampe? Nein, das ist keine Lampe.
Sind das Amerikaner? Nein, das sind keine Amerikaner, das sind Kanadier.
The negative form of the indefinite article “ein” is “kein” (for masculine and neuter) and the negative form of the indefinite article “eine” is “keine” (for feminine). There is also a plural form “keine“. In English, they mean “not a”, “not any”, “no”.
| masculine | ein –> kein |
| feminine | eine –> keine |
| neuter | ein –> kein |
| plural | ∅ –> keine |
If you are not negating a noun preceded by an indefinite article (“ein“/”eine“) in the sentence, you use “nicht” (not). The “nicht” goes in front of the element you want to negate, for example:
Die Wand ist nicht weiß.
Monique wohnt nicht in Deutschland.
When you don’t want to negate a particular word or expression, you place “nicht” at the end of the sentence.
Heute regnet es nicht.
Stefan kommt auch nicht.
“Nicht” is much more complicated to use than “kein” and you will continue to see examples of where to place it in a sentence in the next few units.
Übung 3
Grammatik
Plural Forms of Nouns
In English, most plurals are formed by adding an “-s” or “-es” to the noun (e.g., students, classes, pens), although there are some irregular plural forms in English (e.g., women, children, geese).
Forming the plural of nouns in German is a bit more complicated than in English. There are several rules one could memorize, but that wouldn’t account for the exceptions. We recommend that you learn the plural form of each noun when you are learning the noun itself: das Bücherregal, die Bücherregale.
Some dictionaries (like dict.cc as shown in the screenshot) write out the plural forms. Other dictionaries only indicate the plural form by abbreviations; you need to understand how to form a plural when you see those abbreviations, for example:
die Lampe, -n (this means: you just add -n to the noun; die Lampen is the plural form)
das Fenster, – (this means: you don’t add an ending to the noun; die Fenster is the plural form)
die Mutter, -¨ (this means: you don’t add an ending to the noun, just the Umlaut on the vowel; die Mütter is the plural form)
Online Wörterbuch. Use the online dictionary dict.cc to look up the plural forms of the following nouns. Put in the German word in order to get the plural form indicated as above. Or, if you put in an English word (if you need a translation first), click on the German translation provided and you will get the plural form on a separate page.
Be sure to write down the forms as you will need them in the quiz.
| der Computer | die Wand | das Tablet | der Bleistift | die Uhr |
| der Stuhl | das Papier | die Tafel | das Auto | das Haus |
Grammatik
Cases: The Nominative
As you learn German, you will learn that there are four cases in German (nominative, accusative, dative, genitive). When we use a noun or pronoun in a sentence, we also assign specific cases to those nouns and pronouns to signal their function in the sentence. You have seen many examples of the nominative case in your first few weeks of German.
Die Tafel ist weiß.
Meine Partnerin heißt Karla.
Das ist ein Buch. Es ist blau.
Monique wohnt in Montreal.
The bolded parts are in the nominative case, because they are the subjects of the sentences.
You must remember: The subject of a sentence is always in the nominative case.
If you want to read more about the four cases in German, here is a website that explains all four of them.
Wortschatz in Quizlet:
Take Quiz 5 on Canvas.
Extra Practice (optional):
Video Serie – Nicos Weg
If you would like extra practice “naming objects”, click on the link and watch the video. Then click on “start” under the video and do the exercises.
Extra Hilfe – lingoni GERMAN
Click on this link if you have any questions or want more examples of “Das ist… /Das sind…“.
Media Attributions
- star
- light-bulb
- Pluralformen
- magnifying-glass
- check mark
- play
