The definite article
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| The dei nite article in English, ‘the’, could not be simpler whereas the German equivalents are considerably more complicated. Whenever you utter the word ‘the’ in German you have to ask yourself i rstly whether. the following noun is masculine, feminine, neuter or plural and secondly whether that noun is the subject (nom.), direct object (acc.) or indirect object (dat.) or shows possession (gen.); only then can you decide which of the sixteen words above is appropriate for the context. To say there are sixteen forms is of course a slight exaggeration, as several of the forms occur more than once; this is possible because context always makes it clear what is intended. Let’s take den, for example: |
As you should learn every new German noun together with its dei nite article, you will know from the outset that a noun is masculine, feminine or neuter, which is more or less a matter of rote learning, and thus all you have to think about is what case is required in a given context. If you understand the general make-up of a sentence, i.e. who is doing what to whom, deciding on the appropriate case is easy. The der/die/das paradigm given here fuli ls several functions in German, all of which are clear from the context, but the variety of meanings it can have can be confusing to the beginner. In addition to rendering the dei nite article, it can also translate ‘that/those’ , ‘he/she/it’ , as well as render the relative pronoun |
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