Kapitel 1

I. Gender of German Nouns (pages 1-4) the – der, das, die

German nouns are always capitalized. This is an important fact to remember as it will help
you make sense of the text to translate.
While the definite article is always “the” in English, it has different forms in German. For
example: “der, das, die” in the nominative singular and “die” in the nominative plural. Der
Mann – the man, die Frau- the woman, das Kind – the child. Plural: die Männer – the men,
die Frauen – the women, die Kinder – the children
German nouns have three genders: masculine, neuter or feminine. These genders are
called grammatical genders as opposed to natural gender. This means that while male
beings are generally masculine and female beings are generally feminine all other nouns are
assigned a gender without any clear reason. For example a table (der Tisch) is masculine, a
lamp (die Lampe) is feminine and a book (das Buch) is neuter. Unfortunately, there is no
easy way to predict what gender a noun will have. Below are a few guidelines on predicting
the gender of a noun. (These are the most “useful” guidelines. For more detail see pages 1-
4 in the textbook.) You might wonder why you should bother knowing the gender of a noun.
The main reason is that pronouns (he, she, it = er, sie, es) also use grammatical gender. It
will be much easier to figure out which noun the pronoun is referring to if you have an idea
about the gender of the nouns in the sentence. Another reason is that knowing the gender
of a noun will help you determine the function of the noun in the sentence. (e.g. der Mann
– the man subject of the sentence but der Frau (f) – for/to the woman –indirect object of
the sentence. You will learn about cases and subjects, direct, indirect objects in the
following chapters.)
a. Masculine: Nouns ending in the suffixes –ig (der König), -ich (der Teppich), -ing (der
Frühling), -ast (der Palast), -ist (der Komponist), -mus (der Sozialismus) and most
importantly most nouns ending in –er (der Arbeiter, der Entdecker, der Hammer, der
Italiener)
b. Feminine: Nouns ending in the suffixes –ei (die Bäckerei), -ie (die Industrie), -ik (die
Technik), -ion (die Nation), -heit (die Gesundheit), -keit (die Gemütlichkeit), -schaft (die
Gesellschaft), -tät (die Universität), -ung (die Hoffnung), -ur (die Literatur) and most
importantly most nouns ending in –e (die Lampe)
c. Neuter: Nouns ending in the suffixes –ium (das Studium),-um (das Universum) and most
importantly all nouns ending in the diminutive suffixes –chen and –lein. Note this is
even the case for nouns that are feminine or masculine without the diminutive! (das
Brüderchen, das Fräulein). Also very important: Nouns ending in -in (die Italienerin, die
Architektin) These nouns generally designate a female person. They are most often
used for nationality and occupations.

II. Present and Past Tense of the verb “to be” = “sein”
 The verb “sein” – to be is very irregular and of course used very frequently, as in most
languages. You should memorize the present tense forms of “sein” on page 4 (ich bin, du
bist etc.) and the past tense forms of “sein” (ich war, du warst) on page 5.
Don’t confuse the infinitive form of “ to be – sein” with the possessive adjective “his” as in
sein Auto = his car.
Personal pronouns are treated in chapter 4. For the moment note that German has three
words for you. “Du” is used in the singular informally. “Ihr” is used in the plural informally.
“Sie” is used in the singular and plural, formally.

III. Interrogatives
Memorize the interrogatives on page 6. Note that the verb always follows the interrogative.
IV. Cognates and Loanwords
Since German and English are related languages you will find numerous words that
resemble each other in both languages. It will often help if you try intelligent guessing
before looking up every single word in a dictionary. This will often work and save you a lot
of time, but beware of “false friends”. These are words that look the same in English and
German but mean different things. Example: das Gift means poison not present!
You will find a list of easily guessable nouns on page 7, a list of related verbs on page 16/17
and a list of “false friends” on page 154/155.