NOUNS
Nouns are words which are used for the names of things, ideas or living creatures.
Here are some examples of English nouns, with their German equivalents:
| book | das Buch | ("er) | (n) |
| chair | der Stuhl | ("e) | (m) |
| dog | der Hund | (-e) | (m) |
| cat | die Katze | (-n) | (f) |
| baker | der Bäcker | (-) | (m) |
| dining-room | das Eßzimmer | (-) | (n) |
There are a number of things which are immediately apparent from this list. The first is that the German is more complicated than the English! the second is that German nouns have to learned with their gender and plural; and the third is that all German nouns are written with a capital letter.
Here are some very common German nouns written out in the four cases - nominative (N), accusative (A), genitive (G) and dative (D).
| Masculine | Plural | |
| N | der Mann | die Männer |
| A | den Mann | die Männer |
| G | des Mannes | der Männer |
| D | dem Mann | den Männern |
| Feminine | Plural | |
| N | die Frau | die Frauen |
| A | die Frau | die Frauen |
| G | der Frau | der Frauen |
| D | der Frau | den Frauen |
| Neuter | Plural | |
| N | das Kind | die Kinder |
| A | das Kind | die Kinder |
| G | des Kindes | der Kinder |
| D | dem Kind | den Kindern |
Points to note:
(i) In the singular genitive case, masculine and neuter nouns add the ending -es (or -s if the noun has more than one syllable).
(ii) Feminine nouns do not change in the singular.
(iii) All nouns in the dative plural end in -n or -en.
The only exception to this rule is the group of nouns of foreign origin which form their plural by adding -s e.g. das Auto (-s) or das Hotel (-s). These nouns do not have the dative plural -n or -en.