Articles are a crucial part of most languages. That goes for the German language as well!
But what is the easiest way to learn the German articles? Find out now!
How do the German articles differ from the English ones?
You probably know the English articles but we still have summed them up for you.
There are definite and indefinite articles within the English language.
The definite article is pretty easy to remember since it is: the.
It is one of the most used words in the English language which makes sense since it is used for pretty much anything, singular, and plural.
The indefinite articles are also pretty easy to remember since they are: a and an. They can only be used in front of a singular word.
Do you know when to use a and when to use an? The thing with language is that if we know a language well, we just know how to say it without sometimes realizing why we say it that way.
You use an in case the word following begins with a vowel sound.
It does not matter if there is actually a vowel coming up or if it just sounds like one. Like with an herb and an heir.
Okay, so now we have clarified the English articles. But how are the German ones differentiating from the English ones?
Well, for one: There are a lot more articles!
The German articles
Okay, so let us talk about the German articles.
The German language also has definite and indefinite articles. Technically, there are three definite ones and three indefinite ones.
But they change their form depending on the grammatical structure of the sentence – that is what makes this so tricky!
The definite articles are: der, die, and das. Those are the singular ones, for plural, it is die.
- Der is the masculine definite article.
- Die is the feminine definite article.
- Das is the neutral definite article.
- Die is the definite article for the plural form of all of the above.
So you basically need to know the gender of the word to define which of the definite articles to use.
The indefinite articles are: ein, eine, ein.
- Ein is the masculine definite article.
- Eine is the feminine definite article.
- Ein is the neutral definite article.
So for example, cat is a female word. So it is: Die Katze or eine Katze. It is: Der Hund. So it is?
Ein Hund! Right.
How to actually learn using these German articles?
We are sure that at some point using these articles will come naturally to you. But until then, we have gathered some resources that will for sure help you to really understand the German articles.
1. Deutschtraining
This website will for sure help you to understand everything you will ever need to know about these articles! There are also some exercises that will help you to train using them.
2. Learning the articles with videos
Of course, YouTube offers a huge amount of different videos that will help you to learn about the articles and other important German grammar rules!
There are so many different YouTube channels that can help you to improve your German that there will definitely be at least one channel you will really love.
We recommend you the Lingster Academy videos for now. But there are so many more channels!
3. Apps for your phone
We have already presented you with some of the apps that are for learning German in a different blog article.
Of course, many of these apps also have some sessions all about the articles. We would recommend you to check out Duolingo, Busuu, or really any of the other apps!
4. Podcasts to learn German
But did you know that there are also podcasts that can help you to learn German and German articles?
They are specifically recorded for people to learn the language by listening. Coffee Break German is one of them and we can definitely recommend listening to that one!
5. Books about it
One always a reliable resource to learn something from are books. There are a million books about German grammar, it would definitely be helpful for you to get one of them.
We have also found these flash cards that are all about the German articles.
We are sure you will learn all about these articles in no time! Good luck! Viel Erfolg!
