Der, Die, Das. Shortcuts to Learning Articles.

The article is one of the trickiest parts of learning German. You can live here and speak the language for decades and still mess them up from time to time. It's not a big deal, but the better you are with your articles, the better your German will sound. I'm going to give you some shortcuts to help you with learning articles. And learn them you must! Learn a new noun? Memorise the article. It's not just Tisch (Table). It's der Tisch. It's not Auto (Car). It's das Auto. Also remember that in German all nouns are capitalised. Always. So. Let's get started.

German nouns are broken down into three genders:

• Masculine = Der
• Feminine = Die
• Neutral = Das

At first it may seem confusing but there is a method to determining the gender of a word. It has partly to do with what the object is, and partly to do with the way the word is spelled. I dug these tips out of an old German grammar text book* for you. Enjoy

Masculine (Der)

• Words ending with: -ant, -ast, -ich, -ig, -ismus, -ling, -or, -us
• Male persons or animals.
• Seasons, months, days of the week.
• Points on a compass and types of weather.
• Rocks and minerals.
• Alcoholic drinks (except beer) and plant based drinks.
• Makes of cars.
• Most rivers outside of Germany except for those ending in a vowel.
• Monetary units except for the pound and the mark.
• Mountains and mountain ranges with a few exceptions.

Feminine (Die)

• Words ending with: -a, -anz, -enz, -ei, -heit/keit, -ie, -ik, -in, -scaft, -sion/tion, -tät, -ung, -ur
• Female persons or animals.
• Aeroplanes, motorbike and ship names
• Most native German rivers. (including Swiss and Austrian rivers)
• Names of numerals.

Neutral (Das)

• Words ending with: -chen, -lein, -ma, -tel, -tum, -um
• Young persons and animals.
• Metals and chemical elements.
• Scientific units.
• Letters of the alphabet.
• Names of hotels, cafes, restaurants and cinemas.
• Most names of continents, countries, provinces and towns.

                                                                                         *Hammer's German Grammar and Usage 5th Edition

It's important to remember that there are no hard and fast rules when it comes to grammar. There are always a few exceptions. Try to think of them as guidelines. Also, try not to let it bother you if it seems overwhelming. Learning this stuff from scratch is much more difficult than simply memorising it from childhood (which is how German native speakers learn German). It's not your native tongue. You're allowed to make mistakes.

Other useful tools I discovered are German quiz apps. There are loads of them available for free for android and apple. If you have five extra minutes you can take a quick quiz and brush up on your articles.

So I hope these tips come in handy. If you can think of any exceptions, just add them to the comment section. Thanks for reading.