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