Anyone who is just starting to learn German is faced with the problem of articles. It is difficult for a Russian-speaking person to understand this topic, because in our speech we do not use anything like the articles in German. In this article, we are available and simply answer the most common questions among beginners on this topic.
The articles in the German language come in several forms: definite, indefinite, and zero. Let's consider each of them in order.
Definite article
There are only four of them:
Der - for masculine nouns (der);
Die - for the feminine (di);
Das - for the middle gender (das);
Die is the plural (di).
They are used in the following cases:
- When we know what we are talking about. If you have already spoken about this subject. For example: der Hund (a specific dog that has already been mentioned).
- To indicate unique phenomena of their kind, analogues of which do not exist in nature (die Erde - Earth).
- For designation of many geographical objects: rivers, cities, mountains, seas, oceans, streets and so on (die Alpen - Alps).
- If our noun has an ordinal number (der dritte Mann - the third person), or a superlative adjective (der schnellste Mann - the fastest person).
Indefinite article
Ein - male and middle gender (Ain);
Eine - feminine (Aine).
For the plural, in this case, there is no article.
The indefinite article in German is used in cases:
- When we talk about unfamiliar objects (ein Hund - some kind of dog that we hear about for the first time).
- After the phrase “es gibt” (literally, “available”), for simplicity, we can draw an analogy with the English “there is” (Es gibt einen Weg - there is a road).
- For designations of a species or class (Der Löwe ist ein Raubtier - lion - predatory animal).
- With the verbs Haben (to have) and Brauchen (to need). For example: “Ich habe eine Arbeit” - I have a job.
Zero article
Not all articles in German are actually there. There is such a thing as a zero article. In fact, this lack of article at all. So, we do not write anything before a noun if:
- It denotes a profession or occupation (Sie ist Ärztin - she is a doctor).
- In front of many proper names (London ist die Hauptstadt von Großbritannien - London is the capital of Great Britain).
- To indicate the plural (Hier wohnen Menschen - people live here).
- When designating any chemical substance, material (aus Gold - from gold).
Almost always, the gender of a noun in Russian and the corresponding articles in German differ from each other. For example, if the “girl” we have is feminine, then in German - middle - “das Mädchen”. That is, like a "girl." There is a set of endings with which you can facilitate the definition of the gender of a noun, but for the most part there is only one way out - to remember.
Another difficulty is the declension of the articles in German. As in Russian we do not say: “I see a girl”, so in German. Each article inclines in cases. The task is facilitated by the fact that there are only four cases: Nominativ (nominative), Genetiv (genitive), Dativ (dative) and Akkusativ (like accusative). Declension just needs to be remembered. For your convenience, we will provide a table below.
| husband. R. | wives R. | wednesday R. | plural number |
| Nom | der | die | das | die |
| Akk | den | die | das | die |
| Dat | dem | der | dem | den |
| Gen | des | der | des | der |
As for the indefinite articles, they are inclined according to the same municipality. For example, the male article ein in Akk will be einen, just -en is added to it. This happens with all the other articles.