Definite Articles in German (bestimmter Artikel)

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Definite Articles in German (bestimmter Artikel)

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There are three definite articles in German and they are ‘case’ sensitive. That means these articles change depending on the ‘case’. They are
equivalent of ‘the’ in English. The articles are:

‘der’ for masculine – der Mann, der Tisch, der Stuhl

‚die’ for feminine – die Frau, die Uhr, die Zeit and

‚das‘ for neuter – das Kind, das Regal, das Problem

In plural form

der changes to die – die Männer, die Tische, die Stühle

die remains as it is (‚die‘)– die Frauen, die Uhren, die Zeiten and

das changes to die – die Kinder, die Regale, die Probleme

So till now we discussed about definite articles for the nominative case. And here note that in plural form you have only one definite article – ‘die’, regardless of whether you are talking about masculine, feminine or neuter.

However, as mentioned above definite articles (bestimmter Artikel) are ‘case’ sensitive – they change with Accusative, Dative and Genitive. So let’s have a look how their forms change

Case-----------masculine--------feminine----------neuter---------plural

Nominative ------- der ----------- die ------------- das ----------- die

Accusative ------- den ----------- die ------------- das ----------- die

Dative ------------ dem ---------- der -------------dem ---------- den

Genitive ---------- des ----------- der ------------- des ---------- der

Some examples will help you understand things better:

Nominative: Der Mann lernt deutsch - The man learns German

Accusative: Ich lade den Mann zum Kaffee ein - I invite the man for coffee

Dative: Ich gebe dem Mann ein Wörterbuch - I give the man a dictionary

Genitive: Die Frau des Mannes hat immer Kopfschmerzen – Wife of that man has always headache

*Your questions, suggestions/corrections are highly welcome or write to us: info@shamskm.com
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