I made the mistake of not learning the definite articles to nouns when I initially started to learn German. In English there is only one definite article, “the”. In German, there are three of them “der die and das”. “der” being masculine, “die” being feminine, and “das” being neutral. All nouns in German have a definite articles associated with the noun. Since there is only one in English, we tend to think it’s not important in German. This mindset will end up biting you later on. We must learn nouns with the articles!
To make matters more confusing, some nouns in German can have more than one definite article, which can, but not always, give a different meaning depending on the article used. However, most nouns only have one definite article, so don’t worry too much about this. Keep it in mind.
Ex/Words of the day:
Der Band – volume
Die Band – a music band
Das Band – 1. ribbon 2. measuring tape 3. belt
Definite articles are also important to learn because of the 4 cases in German: Nominative, Accusative, Dative and Genitive. English used to have cases as well. It eventually lost its case system. There are still a few markers we can see from the case system in modern English with personal pronouns. For example, the word “me”. Why don’t we simply say “I”? When someone asks, “Who wants to go to the store with me?” we respond with “me” and not “I”. Why did the question end with “with me” and not “with I” This sort of thing with “me” and “I” happens in German with not only pronouns, but it also with all nouns. If you have not yet learn the case system in German, I highly recommend learning one case at a time and master the 1st case (nominative) before moving onto the next one (accusative).
Reminder: All nouns in German are capitalized (makes things much easier, I know!)
The definite articles that dictionaries give, are all in the nominative case. The nominative case acts as a home base. The subject of a sentence in German is always in the nominative case. However, direct and indirect objects take different cases. Direct objects are in the accusative case in German. “Der Hund” (The dog, wuld turn into “Den Hund” in the accusative case.
Ex: Ich mag den Hund.
Here, the subject is”Ich”, and the direct object is “den Hund”. Since the dog is a direct object, we use the accusative case. “Ich” is in the nominative case (home base case) because it is the subject of the sentence. “mag” is a verb (to like). This is only an example of many cases endings, just so you can get a grasp of what the case system is, if you have not yet learned them.
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