Adjkektivendungen

Adjektivendungen

Kyle L.

Purpose of Adjective Endings: When looking at a complex topic like adjective endings, it is important to remember that the sole objective of them is to reflect the gender and case of the noun. Therefore, the adjective endings need to express the details of gender and case that the article does not in the most simple way possible.

Background Information: To understand which adjective ending you need, it is extremely important to be able to identify the case of a noun. This is a broad topic, and there are such factors as just basic case requirements, case specific verbs, and case specific prepositions. If you need to learn or review this, here are links to my classmates' wikis that explain these topics in more depth: Ryne's Wiki- Articles and Nouns in the Nominative Case Rebecca's Wiki- Articles and Nouns in the Accusative Case Rachel's Wiki- Articles, Nouns, and Verbs in the Dative Case Aditi's Wiki- Articles and Nouns in the Genitive Case Matthew's Wiki- Accusative Prepositions Alec's Wiki- Dative Prepositions Tori's Wiki- Changeable Accusative/ Dative Prepositions

When to Use Adjective Endings: When adjectives stand alone, even if they are referring to a noun, they do not need adjective endings. For instance, a sentence like "I enjoy looking at the green dog" would need adjective endings because the adjective preceedes the noun and is directly associated with it, where as a sentence like "The dog that I enjoy looking at is green" would not need an adjective ending because the adjective is separate from and following the noun and is not directly connected to it in the sentence. Therefore, it would have a separate gender and case from the noun and would not be able to reflect that of the noun.

"der" Words and "ein" Words: When looking at adjective endings, there are two types of articles that you need to be familiar with to be able to understand. The first group of articles is known as "der" words. These include the German articles der, die, das, jeder, jede, jedes, dieser, diese, dieses, welcher, welche, welches, and any changed forms of those words. 'Ein" words include such articles as mein, dein, ein, kein, unser, euer, etc., and any changed versions of those words.

Rules of Adjective Endings: There are really two different groups of adjective endings that you need to look at: 1. This type of eadjective ending is for when the article doesn't clearly communicate the gender and case of the noun. These are called "strong adjective endings" because they have to communicate the gender and case. This includes nouns with no articles and nouns with the article "ein" with absolutely no added endings. In these cases the adjective ending must reference the gender and case, so the adjective endings are based on what the "der" word article would be with the exception of masculine and nominative in the genitive that have the ending -en, even though the article is des in that case.

Example: //A red ball is mine.// Red is describing ball, which is a masculine noun. It is the subject, so it is in the nominative case. The "der" word for masculine, nominative nound is actually der, so the adjective ending that you need is -er. //Ein roter Ball ist mein.//

Below is the table of adjective endings in these cases based on the gender and case of the noun:
 * Gender || Nominativ || Akkusativ || Dativ || Genitive ||
 * Maskulin || -er || -en || -em || -en ||
 * Neutral || -es || -es || -em || -en ||
 * Feminin || -e || -e || -er || - er ||
 * Plural || -e || -e || -en || -er ||

2. There are also adjective endings for nouns with articles that already describe the gender and case of the noun. These are called "weak adjective endings, because they don't have to communicate the gender and case of the noun. This includes all "der" words as well as all "ein" words that have any endings beyond the stem word of ein. This includes words like eine, einer, einen, eines, and einem. These words only end in -e or -en. The easy way to remember this is that all of the articles that are in their original, nominative article form, even if they are in the accusative case (such as eine being in both nominative and accusative but even in the accusative case it would be the same word as in its nominative form) will have the adjective ending -e. This includes the words der (masculine, nominative), die (feminine, nominative and accusative), das (neutral, nominative and accusative), and eine (feminine, nominative and accusative). All of the other articles in this classification end in -en, including all plurals.

Example: //I think that the blond girl is nice.// Blond is describing girl, which is a neutral noun. The girl is the subject of the dependent clause, so it is in the nominative case. Therefore, the article is in its original, nominative form, so the adjective ending is -e. //Ich finde, dass das blonde Mädchen nett ist.//

Below is a table of the adjective endings for this classification of articles:
 * Gender || Nominativ || Akkusativ || Dativ || Genitiv ||
 * Neutral || -e || -e || -en || -en ||
 * Feminin || -e || -e || -en || -en ||
 * Maskulin || -e || -en || -en || -en ||
 * Plural || -en || -en || -en || -en ||

WARNING: Be careful about your adjectives. If the adjective ends in the letter e, then do not add another e right after that, just the rest of the ending. In this case, if the ending is just -e, then the adjective does not change.

If you need a quick reference sheet to know exactly what adjective ending you need in a given sentence, following the directions in the PowerPoint below will give you a quick answer and may also be a helpful study guide:

If you're still having trouble understanding adjective endings (and don't worry if you are, it's a tough topic), then here is a link that explains it similarly to how I did but a little bit more thoroughly: []

If you're STILL having toruble, especially with the weak adjective endings that don't seem to have any definite reason or rules to them, here is a quick video with a catchy trick that should help you out: media type="youtube" key="AfJ4TXm4N1c" height="344" width="425"

Now that you've most certianly mastered the concept of adjective endings, here is a quiz that will truly test your knowledge of this very complicated subject. It has a variety of questions to test all different genders and cases: []