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they should agree in gender and number with the noun they modify. Adjectives
forms vary depending on the case (nominative, accusative, dative and genitive).
Note how adjectives take an extra “e” when they’re placed before nouns and
a definite article is placed before them in the nominative:
German Adjectives
Masculine: (schnell/ fast): der schnelle Tiger (the fast tiger).
Feminine: (jung/ young): die junge Dame (the young lady).
Neuter: (klug/ smart): das kluge Kind (the smart child).
Plural: (gut/ good): sie sind gute Bücher (they’re good books).
For all the rest of the cases (accusative, dative and genitive) adjectives ending take
“en” in the masculine, and “e” in the feminine and neuter.
Accusative: Ich habe den schnellen Tiger gesehen (I have seen the fast tiger), Ich
habe die jungeDame gesehen. (I have seen the young lady).
The same thing happens with dative and genitive where the adjective take “en” in the
masculine, and “e” in the feminine/ neuter/plural.
Remember that this happens only when we add a definite article der, die, das (the) or
the pronouns dieser (this), jener (that), solcher (such), jeder (each), welcher (which).
The plural ending for these weak adjectives is “en” in ALL cases (nominative,
accusative, dative, and genitive), which is good news.
Ich habe die schnellen Katzen gesehen (I have seen the fast cats).
Ich habe die jungen Damen gesehen (I have seen the young ladies).
Adjectives proceeded by the indefinite articles (ein/ eine/ ein) or the pronouns such
as mein (my, mine), sein (his)… kein (no) have an irregular declension:
Adjetives in German
singular masculine feminine neuter
nominative ein guter Mann eine schöne Rose ein altes Buch
accusative einen guten Mann eine schöne Rose ein altes Buch
dative einem guten Mann einer schönen Rose einem alten Buch
genitive eines guten Mannes einer schönen Rose eines alten Buches
The plural endings for strong adjectives are the same for all three genders:
Plural adjectives
nominative keine guten Männer
accusative keine guten Männer
dative keinen guten Männern
genitive keiner guten Männer
Below is a list of some common adjectives in German, they’re in their original form,
so they’re not yet influenced by any other cases like (accusative, dative, and genitive),
so take that into consideration when you put these adjectives in a non nominative
case.
For example: Er ist schnell (he is fast). (but) Er ist ein schneller Mann.(note how in
the first setences the adjective schnell wasn’t influenced by anything and therefore
stayed in its original form, but in the second example “ein” made it take “er” at the
end). The same thing may occur to the adjectives below: