There are three different types of nouns:
Concrete nouns describe objects or things that exist in the physical world.
e.g. Bus (bus) or Baum (tree).
Abstract nouns describe emotions or ideas.
e.g. Angst (fear) or Politik (politics).
Proper nouns are names of specific people or places.
e.g. Berlin, Tom, Deutschland (Germany).
Nouns Have Genders
All German nouns are either masculine, feminine or neuter. This changes the words you need to use to say ‘the’ (definite article) or ‘a’ (indefinite article).
Masculine – der / ein
der / ein Hund (the / a dog)
Feminine – die / eine
die / eine Blume (the / a flower)
Neuter – das / ein
das / ein Auto (the / a car)
Plural Nouns
In English, we usually form the plural just by adding -s onto the end of a noun. Unfortunately, plurals are a lot trickier in German, as there are several different ways to form the plural. Aside from a few patterns, it’s difficult to predict which one a noun will use:
Note: Regardless of the gender of the noun, plurals use the article “die”.
By adding -e:
Singular: ein Schuh (a shoe)
Plural: die Schuhe (the shoes)
By adding -er (and usually an umlaut):
Singular: ein Buch (a book)
Plural: die Bücher (the books)
By adding -n:
Singular: eine Tasse (a cup)
Plural: die Tassen (the cups)
By adding -en:
Singular: eine Frau (a woman)
Plural: die Frauen (the women)
By adding -s:
Singular: ein Laptop (a laptop)
Plural: die Laptops (the laptops)
Nouns Change with Case
Nouns can change depending on the case they are in: Nominative, Accusative, Dative, or Genitive. See how the masculine noun der Hund (the dog) changes between the cases:
Nominative: der Hund
Accusative: den Hund
Dative: dem Hund
Dative Plural: den Hunden
Genitive: des Hundes
This makes it very important to learn how each case changes articles and nouns.
