Grammatikalisches Geschlecht – Grammatical gender
Rebecca Steele
German has three genders: masculine, feminine, and neuter. The plural for all three genders is the same.
There are two kinds of articles in German: definite (= the) and indefinite (= a/an) articles.
| masculine | feminine | neuter | plural | |
| Definite (=the) | der | die | das | die |
| Indefinite (=a/an) | ein | eine | ein | keine (= no; not any) |
Because there are three genders, there are three words for “it”, since each word will take the corresponding pronoun. What does this mean?
| das Haus –> es | the house –> it |
| die Blume –> sie | the flower –> it |
| der Baum –> er | the tree –> it |
When talking about people, the pronoun also follows the gender of the noun.
| der Mann –> er | the man –> he |
| die Frau –> sie | the woman –> she |
| das Kind –> es | the child –> he/she/ it |
| das Mädchen –> es |
the girl –> she |
Generally, you will need to memorize the corresponding gender. Here are some resources on German gender rules to help limit the necessity to memorize the gender for every word.
