Articles in German - Der, Die, Das

Gender of a noun

In German, it is crucial to be able to identify the gender of a noun in order to choose the corresponding article. However, this is not a trivial task in German language. Our online “der die das” simulator app will help you to learn identifying the gender of a German noun and choosing the correct article. But first let’s have a brief look at a rule related to articles in German.

In German language there are 2 groups of articles:

• Indefinite articles. Such articles are used to speak about more generic, not exact things (equivalent to articles “a”, “an” in English). Indefinite articles in German are: eine, ein.

  Example:

  Eine Katze sitzt jetzt auf dem Dach. - A cat is sitting now on the roof (any cat, not an exact one).

• Definite articles. These articles are used when we speak about exact things (equivalent to article “the” in English). Definite articles in German are: der, die, das

  Example:

  Mein Bruder hat eine Katze. Die Katze sitzt jetzt auf dem Dach. - My brother has a cat. The cat is sitting now on the roof (the exact cat of my brother).

How to choose the correct article in German?

In order to identify, which article to use, the following should be taken into account:

• Number - singular of plural
• Gender - for nouns with masculine, feminine, neuter gender different articles are used
• Case - indicates what role it is playing in the sentence (In level A1 it is necessary to know Nominative, Accusative and Dativ. Case Genitiv is learned later in other levels)

German articles table

Indefinite articles table:

Case/Gender	Masculine	Feminine	Neuter	Plural
Nominative	ein	eine	ein	-
Accusative	einen	eine	ein	-
Dative	einem	einer	einem	-

Definite articles table:

Case/ Gender	Masculine	Feminine	Neuter	Plural
Nominative	der	die	das	die
Accusative	den	die	das	die
Dative	dem	der	dem	den

How to learn German articles "der", "die" and "das" ?

This can be a tricky task, but with practice using our app you will memorize the gender of a noun and corresponding article much quicker!

Der die das - German exercise!

In order to learn and practise choosing definite articles for German A1 nouns online use the following der die das simulator application.

German words for the app are chosen from official Goethe exam German A1 preparation materials.