Nouns Part I: Saying "the" in German

One of the oddest things about nouns in German to an English speaker is that they all have something called gender. All nouns are either masculine, feminine or neuter. Before we get much further, I want to begin drilling into your head that the gender of a noun is basically random. You can't assume that a word with a masculine connotation is masculine, for example.

One way to discover a noun's gender is to look at its definite article. In English, we say "the car", "the street" and "the house"; in all three instances we use the same definite article, "the". In German, each of these words has a different gender so the definite article or the "the" is different. These words in German are:

• der wagon (masculine)
• die strasse (feminine)
• das haus (neuter)

So, if you read or hear a word without its definite article, how do you know its gender? Unless you also read other grammatical clues we'll talk about later, you don't! You simply must learn the gender of a noun when you learn the noun. While there actually are some patterns that can help you determine the gender of a noun, it's much better to simply assume for now that for every noun you learn you must also memorize its gender.

By the way, Latin has the same genders as German. The best known Romance languages like Spanish and French have essentially eliminated the nueter gender.

What's German like?

Describing a language is not easy, especially if you're describing it to someone who only speaks English, as there is no frame of reference. Here are a few of my observations:

• English is a Germanic language, so German and English have a lot in common. For example, some vocabulary is virtually identical.
• German is a very structured language with a much more complex grammer than English. I believe people can begin speaking English quickly (though imperfectly) because it is simple. I think German has a much steeper learning curve.
• Because of the complexity of German grammer, an understanding of English grammer is essential to understanding German. If you can't identify the subject, verb and object in an English sentence, I would assume that learning proper German will be difficult.
• German was influenced heavily by Latin both grammatically and in terms of vocabulary. Speaking a Latin language (Spanish, French, Portuguese, Italian or Romanian) is an advantage.
• Pronunciation is much more consistant in German than in English. There are some sounds in German that aren't found in English (and vice versa of course).

Introduction...

I'm creating this blog to hopefully help others, particularly Americans, learn German. I am a "Yankee" that has recently moved to Germany and must now learn this great land's mother tongue. I love language and have studied various languages since I was a child.

As an adult, I moved to Brazil and learned Portuguese. Learning a language as an adult is one of the most difficult things many of us will ever do. I also speak/read Spanish fairly well and have studied but not learned (get ready): Catalán, Italian, Basque and French.

I'm hoping the insights I gain as I learn German will help others.