German Articles: Your Essential Guide

Here, again, is the abbreviated chart (no weak declensions listed). For the full chart and how to use it, read my guide on declensions.

Heads Up!

Because the All-In-One Chart replaces10 charts, we have to boil declensions down to the essentials that are all shared in common: the very last letter.

That is why the All-In-One Declensions Chart has just one letter in each spot.

What you need to remember is: (almost) always add an ‘e’in front of the listed declension.

Exceptions (i.e. When NOT to add an ‘e’):

• if an ‘e’ is the listed declension itself, you don’t need to add another one!
  • feminine & plural nominative & accusative
• if using the chart to form ‘the’, remember to use different vowels (not ‘e’) here:
  • feminine nominative & accusative: die, use an ‘i’
• also plural nominative & accusative: die
• neuter nominative & accusative: das, with an ‘a’

Click for a complete discussion of this chart detail in my guide on declensions.

Examples Using The All-In-One Declensions Chart

In this guide on adjectives and this guide on pronouns, we’ll thoroughly discuss how the All-In-One Chart replaces those charts from our scary list of 10 from way above.

But now, let’s look at specific examples of the other determiners (that you may hear referred to as articles) can be ‘plugged in’ to the chart to give you the results you need!

Definite Articles (‘the’)

Let’s take the noun Tür (door) and plug it into chart!

Tür is a feminine noun — die Tür.

If we put it into each of the possible cases, it would look like this:

nominative: die Tür
accusative: die Tür
dative: der Tür
genitive: der Tür

Notice the strong declension each time, of course!

Then, for example, let’s say we want to make door plural → Türen (doors) and re-plug it in under the plurals column:

nominative: die Türen
accusative: die Türen
dative: den Türen
genitive: der Türen

Here’s another example on how to use the determiner ‘the’ with the All-In-One chart.

Indefinite Article (‘a’)

Now, let’s work with a masculine noun: Teller (plate) and plug it into the 4 cases:

nominative: ein Teller
accusative: einen Teller
dative: einem Teller
genitive: eines Tellers

Do you see the one (of 3) exceptions spots at play here? YES, in the nominative! We need to use just ein Teller, with no declension on the ein! But then in the rest of the spots, we’re back to our regular, strong declensions we always put on whatever determiner we’re using. Nice work.

NOTE: Read here if you’re curious why there is an ‘s’ on the end of Teller in the genitive.

Of course, we can’t mix the determiner ‘a’ with a plural noun (we can say ‘a plates’), so we have to skip that! 

Demonstratives (der-words)

I gave you a good list of der-words above (and there are more!), but let’s look at the common jed- (every) now and pair it with Teller still.

nominative: jeder Teller
accusative: jeden Teller
dative: jedem Teller
genitive: jedes Tellers

Since jed- is not an ein-word (obviously, right? :p), we don’t have to worry about any possible exceptions — just strong declensions straight through!

Possessives

OK, so here we need to look at examples for our two types of possessives. Remember, we have the one variety (my, your, our, etc.) that comes in front of nouns and the other (mine, yours, ours, etc.) that stands alone.

The possessives that come in front of nouns could most accurately be called possessive determiners. They belong to our category of ein-words! That means they will take strong declensions except in our 3 exceptions spots. 

Possessive Determiners Example:

Let’s say the phrase my pillow in every case. Pillow is Kissen (a neuter noun). And our ‘root’ possessive determiner (that is the basis for both the possessives my AND mine) is mein.

nominative: mein Kissen
accusative: mein Kissen
dative: meinem Kissen
genitive: meines Kissens

Do you see the regular, strong declensions in the dative & genitive cases? But the nominative and accusative cases are two of our three exception spots! 

Possessive Pronouns Example:

Technically, the best term for the ‘stand-alone’ possessives is possessive pronouns (because pronouns take the place of nouns / noun phrases). 

For example, instead of saying That pillow is my pillow (<–redundant!), we can use the possessive pronoun mine and say That pillow is mine. The possessive pronoun mine replaces the noun phrase my pillow.

Whenever we use a possessive pronoun, the strong declension is needed!

nominative: meins
accusative: meins
dative: meinem
genitive: meines

So, that is how you’d say mine for a neuter noun (e.g. Kissen) in each case. Do you see it?