German I, Semester I; Der Kalender

Sections:

Introduction  |   Section 1  |  Section 2  |   Section 3   |  Dictionaries

Section One:

Part A  |   Part B  |  Part C  |   Part D |   Part E |  Part F  | Part G

Section One - Part G Singular und Plural Do you remember back in Unit 1, we learned how to say man, woman, young woman, child? Check yourself here to see if you do remember: der Mann the man die Frau the woman das Fräulein the young woman das Kind the child der Freund/die Freundin the friend How did you do? If you are having trouble remembering the new vocabulary you are learning, you might need some clues about how best to study vocabulary in a foreign language. If this is your case, please be in contact with your teacher. These words are called nouns. Do you know what a noun is in English? A noun is a person, place, thing or idea. In German, all nouns have a gender-- masculine, feminine or neutral. It is somewhat difficult to know the gender of the nouns, as typically there is no rhyme nor reason as to why they have the articles they do. Just remember that all nouns have gender. Think of this as a technicality of the language. This does not mean they were made by one gender of person or are owned by one group of people. The gender of a word is simply telling you what "brand" of word it is and it comes in handy for lots of things down the road. You need to learn the genders of nouns in German because it becomes increasingly important when we begin to put words together to form complete thoughts. In the above list of nouns, you can also see that each noun is preceded by a little word. That little word is called an article and the ones used above are called definite articles. They refer to the man, the woman, the child, etc. There are four forms of the definite article in German, depending on the gender and number of the noun. der Mann masculine die Frau feminine das Kind neutral die Kinder plural The best way to remember the four articles, is simply to memorize der, die, das, die--just like that. The only way to remember the specific article for each noun is to practice and memorize them. Did you notice that the plural of das Kind is die Kinder? There are many different endings to make nouns plural, and again, you will have to memorize the plural forms. When you look up a word in a dictionary, it will often appear like this: Kind, n, -er (das Kind, die Kinder) Mann, m, -`` er (der Mann, die Männer) Frau, f, -en (die Frau, die Frauen) The first word is the noun, the letter in italics is telling you the gender of the noun, and the last part after the dash - is telling you what you need to add to form the plural. Sometimes the plural simply adds an -e, -en, -n, -nen, or no ending at all. If there is no ending to add, you will see just a (-) in the dictionary Sometimes the plural form requires an added umlaut or other ending, as in the “Mann” example above. If the dictionary shows something like (-`` er), that means you need to add an umlaut only to the first available a, o or u in the word, followed by the ending indicated. One thing you can be sure of: The definite article for all plurals, regardless of the singular gender of the noun, is always die! In the following list of words, see if you can make the nouns and their articles plural in German. If you need help, you may consult the course dictionaries. Then click on each word to see if you have done it correctly. der Fernseher (das T.V.) die Fernseher der Computer die Computer das Telefon die Telefone das Radio die Radios der Schüler die Schüler die Schule die Schulen der Lehrer die Lehrer die Lehrerin die Lehrerinnen der Freund die Freunde der Bleistift die Bleistifte Cognates Paying attention to that list of words, you might think that you know what the words mean simply because they look like a word you know in English. Words like that are wonderful because generally, they really do mean what you think they mean. (There are some, however, that do not.) These words are called cognates. They are words that look like a word in another language and share the same meaning. Homework Activity If you are sure of how to make nouns plural in German, do this homework assignment and turn it in to your teacher. This assignment is worth 8 points. Make this list of words plural in German. Be sure to include the article. das Kind der Freund das Haus der Bleistift die Schule die Lehrerin der Computer der Kalender You are now ready for the Section 1 Quiz.

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