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German nouns, whether referring to people or objects, are either masculine, feminine or neuter. When you look up words in the dictionary you will see this marked as m, f, n respectively. Each type of noun has a different word for the.

der is used with masculine nouns.
der Ku'damm the Ku'damm
der Bruder the brother

die is used with feminine nouns.
die Straße the street
die Freundin the (female) friend

das is used with neuter nouns.



das Rathaus the town council
das Kind the child

It's a good idea to learn nouns with the appropriate word for the as you go along, as gender is important when building up sentences.

At times you'll hear the words den and dem also meaning the. You'll see and hear these forms when they appear at certain positions in the sentence, eg. after verbs and prepositions.

See also...
Plurals
Saying 'a'
Saying 'this, 'that' and 'these'
Using 'den'


Is it der, die or is it das? Click on 'Start the activity' and then drag the right word on the right into the gaps to complete the sentences.




1. Guess the Words 2. Re-arrange the dialogue 3. Build sentences 4. Speak and Write

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