Three Grammatical Genders

Every German noun belongs to one gender class:

• masculine: der (e.g., der Tisch)
• feminine: die (e.g., die Lampe)
• neuter: das (e.g., das Buch)

In plural, all genders use die:

• die Tische, die Lampen, die Bücher

Gender controls agreement across the phrase:

• der alte Tisch
• die kleine Lampe
• das neue Buch

Gender also interacts with case (Nominativ, Akkusativ, Dativ, Genitiv), so article forms can change:

• Nominativ: der Mann
• Akkusativ: den Mann
• Dativ: dem Mann
• Genitiv: des Mannes

That is why memorizing a noun without its article causes long-term errors.

1. 1[Article by gender] + [Noun]
2. 2[Article by gender] + [Adjective ending] + [Noun]
3. 3[Case form] + [gender agreement] across the full noun phrase

• Every time you introduce a noun with an article.
• When adding adjectives before nouns.
• When switching cases in longer sentences.
• In both spoken and written German for natural accuracy.

• Do not memorize nouns without article.
• Do not assume biological sex equals grammatical gender for all nouns.
• Do not overgeneralize endings (-ung feminine etc.) without checking exceptions.

1. 1Saying die Tisch instead of der Tisch.
2. 2Forgetting plural uses die for all genders.
3. 3Mixing case and gender forms (der vs den vs dem).
4. 4Treating adjective endings as independent from article gender.

German grammatical gender differs from natural gender. For example, das Mädchen is neuter grammatically, even though it refers to a girl. Compared with English, German requires much more agreement tracking. Compared with Romance languages, German combines gender with case changes more heavily in articles.