German articles Totally Explained

Everything about German Articles totally explained

German articles have a feature called "strength", which influences the declension of the adjectives. There are strong articles, weak articles, and articles that have strong and weak cases. Sometimes this feature isn't constant in daily use.
The inflected forms depend on the number, the case and the gender of the corresponding noun. Articles have the same plural forms for all three genders. Indefinite article endings (mixed)

	Masculine	Neuter	Feminine	Plural
Nominative	-0	-0	-e	-e
Accusative	-en	-0	-e	-e
Dative	-em	-em	-er	-en
Genitive	-es	-es	-er	-er

This table declines the indefinite article (mixed) (ein-), the negative indefinite article (mixed) (kein-), and the possessive pronouns (mixed) (mein-, dein-, sein-, ihr-, unser-, euer/eur-).
The indefinite article doesn't have a specific plural form (like English, but unlike Italian); there are several article words for this need. In most cases, however, these plural forms are left out. This is quite similar to English.

Definite article (strong)

	Masculine	Neuter	Feminine	Plural
Nominative	der	das	die	die
Accusative	den	das	die	die
Dative	dem	dem	der	den
Genitive	des	des	der	der

Definite article endings (strong)

	Masculine	Neuter	Feminine	Plural
Nominative	-er	-es	-e	-e
Accusative	-en	-es	-e	-e
Dative	-em	-em	-er	-en
Genitive	-es	-es	-er	-er

Note that this is essentially the same as the indefinite article table, but with the masculine nominative -er and the neuter nominative and accusative -es.

This table declines the demonstrative pronouns (dies-, jen-) (this, that; strong) and the relative pronoun (welch-) (which; strong)

Possessive "article-like" pronouns

Under some circumstances the regular possessive pronouns are replaced by the genitive forms of the pronouns derived from the definite article. They agree in number and gender with the possessor. Unlike other pronouns they carry no strength. Any adjective following them in the phrase will carry the strong endings.
There are possessive pronouns derived from the definite article and derived from the interrogative article. They have the same forms for all cases of the possessed word, but they're only rarely used in the genitive case. Definite possessive [ofthe] (mixed)

Masculine: dessen

Neuter: dessen

Feminine: deren

Plural: deren Interrogative possessive [ofwhat] (mixed)

Masculine: wessen

Neuter: wessen

Feminine: wessen

Plural: wessen ť NOT: Die Soldaten dessen Armee

In a rather ancient type of German, spoken until the 18th century, a genitive noun can be used instead of a possessive pronoun. This is occasionally found in very literary modern German, and sometimes hence used for facetious effect. ť OLD: "Des Königs Krone" (The king's crown)

(MODERN: "Die Krone des Königs" - BUT: "Die Königskrone" (compound noun))
These pronouns are used if using the ordinary possessive pronoun is understood reflexively, or there are several possessors.

Further Information

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