TIPS FOR LEARNING GENDER - der/die/das

Words represent or express things - in German, words are coded or formatted m, f, or n. The things themselves remain things. We are not saying that the thing, the shoe - der Schuh, is somehow a masculine thing. Rather, the word for Schuh is masculine and is given the article der and the pronoun er. On a slightly different note, a female dog is still referred to as der Hund - er, because the word for dog is a masculine word. It would make just as much sense to say that words are blue/red/green or square/circular/triangular. In other words, there is no great meaning attached to m, f, n - they're simply formatting peculiarities used to set up the equation of a German sentence. Got it? As a bonus, here's a ridiculous but humorous article discussing the problem of determing genders by male and female characteristics.

Gender of German Nouns - Masculine

  • Names of the days, months and seasons
  • Names of directions and winds
  • Names of cars and trains
  • Most nouns ending in -ich and -ling
  • Most nouns ending in -ig (Exception: das Riesig)
  • Most nouns ending in -el (Some Exceptions: die Bibel, die Insel, die Kartoffel, das Kapitel )
  • Most nouns ending in -en (Exceptions: all infinitives, das Examen, etc.)
  • Nouns ending in -er, when they refer to people (exceptions: die Mutter, die Butter, das Poster)

    Gender of German Nouns - Feminine

  • Names of cardinal numbers
  • Most nouns ending in -e (exceptions: those with prefix Ge- and those denoting males)
  • Nouns ending in -heit, -keit and -schaft
  • Nouns ending in -in (persons only)
  • Nouns ending in -ei (exceptions: nouns denoting a type of egg eg. das Spiegelei)
  • Nouns ending in -ung
  • Nouns of foreign words ending in -ade, -age, -anz, -enz, -ette, -ie, -ik, -ine, -ion, -isse, -itis, -ive, -tät and -ur

    Gender of German Nouns - Neuter

  • Names of towns and countries (Exceptions: die Schweiz, die Turkei)
  • Names of letters and musical notes
  • Names of colours
  • Infinitives used as nouns: das Schwimmen
  • Most nouns starting with Ge- (Exceptions: der Geschmack, die Geburt, etc.)
  • Most nouns ending in -chen and -lein
  • Most nouns ending in -ment (Exceptions: der Moment, der Zement )
  • Most nouns ending in -nis (Exceptions: die Erlaubnis, die Erkenntnis, die Finsternis)
  • Most nouns ending in -tum (Exceptions: der Irrtum, der Reichtum )
  • Most nouns ending in -um

    Adapted from German and Indonesian Teaching Resources | 18 October 1998
    Katherine Munro | kmunro@gil.com.au