German nouns

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Introduction

There are a few points that make the German noun kind of special:

• It is always written in upper case, even if it's a deverbalized (substantiviertes Verb) or deajectivized noun (substantiviertes Adjektiv).
• It has a grammatical gender (masculine, feminine or neuter) that might not correspond to natural sex.
• Its plural form must be learned at heart, because you don't just add an S.
• It is only slightly declined in case.

Case

The case distinction is most obvious in the choice of the appropriate article.

• Feminine nouns are not declined at all.
• In plural, all nouns get an additional N in dative case if the plural does not end in N or S.
• Masculine and neuter nouns in singular are more complicated:
  • In nominative and accusative, the basic form is used.
  • In dative, you can add an E, but that sounds archaic nowadays.
  • In genitive, you add either (E)N or (E)S, depending on the kind of noun. There are no clear rules, so you have to learn the genitive ending with every noun. The E is dropped when the pronunciation allows it.

Plural

There are various plural suffixes in German: EN, N, ER, S or nothing. Some nouns are also umlauted in plural.
In total, there are five ways to form a plural:

1. no letter added, noun possibly umlauted (in words ending in E/EL/EN/ER)
   • das Zeichen - die Zeichen (sign)
   • der Vogel - die Vögel (bird)
2. E added, noun possibly umlauted
   • der Weg - die Wege (way, path)
   • die Maus - die Mäuse (mouse)
3. EN added (only N if the word ends in E, EL or ER)
   • die Frau - die Frauen (woman)
   • die Blume - die Blumen (flower)
4. ER added, noun possibly umlauted
   • das Kind - die Kinder (child)
   • der Mann - die Männer (man)
5. S added (in words of foreign origin or acronyms)
   • das Auto - die Autos (car)
   • das Baby - die Babys (baby)

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