Nouns & Cases

Question 1

German Nouns

Answer 1

All nouns have a gender in German, either masculine, feminine or neuter. There really isn’t a lot of logic to which nouns are which gender, so you must memorize the gender of each noun.

Question 2

Male persons or animals, the seasons, months, and days are all masculine, as are nouns ending in

Answer 2

-ant, -ast, -ich, -ig, -ismus, -ling, -or and -us.

Question 3

Female persons or animals, and numerals are all feminine, as are nouns ending in

Answer 3

-a, -anz, -ei, -enz, -heit, -ie, -ik, -in, -keit, -schaft, -sion, -sis, -tät, -tion, -ung and -ur.

Question 4

Young persons or animals, metals, chemical elements, letters of the alphabet, hotels, restaurants, cinemas, continents, countries and provinces are all neuter, as are nouns that end in

Answer 4

-chen, -icht, -il, -it, -lein, -ma, -ment, -tel, -tum, and -um. Nouns referring to things that end in -al, -an, -ar, -ät, -ent, -ett, -ier, -iv, -o and -on, as well as most words with the prefix ge- and most nouns ending in -nis and -sal are also neuter.

Question 5

All nouns in German are ___________ in writing.

Answer 5

capitalized

Question 6

All nouns (as well as pronouns and adjectives) have a case depending on what function they serve in the sentence.

Answer 6

Although these cases may make learning new words difficult, they actually help with word order because the position of words in a sentence is not as fixed in German as it is in English.

Question 7

Nominative

Answer 7

subject of the sentence (The girl is reading.)

Question 8

Accusative

Answer 8

direct objects (We see the mountain. I bought a gift.)

Question 9

Dative

Answer 9

indirect objects (We talk to the guide. I gave my mom a gift.)

Question 10

Genitive

Answer 10

indicates possession or relationship (The book of the girl. The dog’s tail.)

Question 11

The nouns you look up in a dictionary will be in the __________ case.

Answer 11

nominative