As you will see below, an intricate system of adjectival endings prevails in German. It is perhaps the best example of German as an inflectional language. The following paradigms show how adjectives are inflected or declined and are thus often referred to as adjectival inflections or declensions.

Adjectives are used both predicatively and attributively, as in English. A predicate (also called predicative) adjective is one that does not stand in front of a noun, i.e. it is not used attributively like one standing in front of a noun, e.g. ‘His car is red’ (a predicate adjective), but ‘his red car’ (an attributive adjective).

Predicate adjectives are invariable, i.e. they do not take endings, thus Sein Auto ist rot. But attributive adjectives must agree in gender, number and case with the noun they precede, thus sein rotes Auto (neuter, singular, nominative). And here lies another bothersome aspect of German which takes some mastering.

There are three paradigms or sets of adjectival endings that need to be learnt in order to know exactly what the correct ending is for an attributive adjective standing in front of a German noun. There are

1 the endings used after der/die/das (also called weak endings)
2 the endings used after ein/eine/ein (also called mixed endings) and
3 the unpreceded adjectival endings (also called strong endings).