Declension of adjectives in German. How to remember the endings of adjectives in German. Declension of adjectives with the indefinite article

German adjective - a part of speech that expresses a sign of an object, answering questions from Welcher? Welche?Welches? (what? what? what? what?).

Declension of adjectives

An adjective changes when it is a determiner of a noun. The type of declension depends on the type of article and pronoun. Declension can be of three types: weak, strong, mixed. Through the declension of an adjective, you can determine the case, number and gender of the noun. Endings in the declension of an adjective can be expressive and neutral. An adjective receives a neutral ending if the endings of the pronoun or article are expressive and vice versa. That is, in the scheme "article - adjective - noun" there can be only one expressive ending.

1. Strong declension (no article)

The strong declension is used when the noun has no article or pronoun. In this case, the adjective plays the role of a definite article and takes its ending.

2. Weak declension (definite article)

The weak adjective declension is used with the definite article or with the pronouns dieser (he), jener (he), jeder (everyone), solcher (such), welcher (which), mancher (some), which have the inflection of the definite article. If the form of the article is initial, the ending of the adjective is neutral (-e), if the form of the article is changed, the ending is expressive (-en).

3. Mixed declension (indefinite article)

The adjective will have a mixed declension if the indefinite article is used, the pronoun kein (no one, none) or the possessive pronouns mein (mine), dein (your), unser (our), euer (your) are used. The mixed declension is used only with the singular.

In the plural for adjectives, there are only two types of declension: strong and weak. If there are several adjectives with a noun, they receive the same declension. The adjective declension rule applies to ordinal numbers and participles.

COMPARATIVE DEGREES OF ADJECTIVES

Qualitative adjectives and adverbs have three degrees of comparison: positive (der Positiv), comparative (der Komparativ) and superlative (der Superlativ).

Comparative degree = positive degree + suffix –er

Superlative = positive degree + suffix -(e)st

For example: positive degree - schön (beautiful), comparative degree - schöner (more beautiful), superlative degree - Der Schönste (most beautiful).

For most adjectives, degrees of comparison are formed without an umlaut. One-syllable adjectives of comparative and superlative degrees that have such root vowels a, o, u form a degree of comparison with umlaut. These adjectives include: alt (old), lang (long), grob (rough), arm (poor), scharf (sharp), dumm (stupid), hart (hard), schwach (weak), jung (young), kalt (cold), stark (strong), kurz (short), krank (sick), warm (warm). Positive and comparative adjectives are used in short form to indicate the nominal part of the predicate, superlative adjectives - in both short and inflected forms. The comparative degree is characterized by both the definite and the indefinite article, and the superlative degree by the definite article.

26.02.2014 WEDNESDAY 00:00

GRAMMAR

The declension of adjectives - Deklination der Adjektive - is determined not only by the gender, number and case of the noun to which the adjective refers. It is also determined by what accompanying word - article, pronoun, numeral, etc. - comes before a noun. Depending on this, strong, weak and mixed declension of adjectives are distinguished.

In this article, we will look at each of these declensions.

Strong declension of adjectives

Before the adjective there is no accompanying word or the accompanying word is not able to give a grammatical characteristic of the noun - gender, number and case. In this case, the adjective takes on the functions of the article and takes on the endings of the definite article.

Weak declension of adjectives

An adjective is preceded by an accompanying word - a definite article or a word that replaces it - and it clearly defines the gender, number and case of the noun.

Mixed declension of adjectives

The adjective is preceded by an accompanying word in the form of the indefinite article ein - only in the singular, or the possessive pronouns mein, dei n, etc. or the indefinite pronoun kein.

Since the indefinite article is not used in the plural, adjectives, inflected with a noun without an article, receive the endings of the strong plural declension.

After the possessive pronouns mein, dein, etc. and the indefinite - negative - pronoun kein plural adjectives have weak declension forms.

Seems very complicated. Those who studied English suffer especially: in it, as you know, adjectives are not declined at all. However, if we compare the German language with Russian, then it turns out that everything is not so scary.

It is carried out in three main types, and the first has three more varieties: hard, soft and mixed declension. The latter has three more types depending on the last consonant in the root.

A detailed acquaintance with the rules of the Russian language helps most language learners quickly and easily understand the German adjective declension. After such an acquaintance, the German language seems simpler and clearer, and even sympathy appears for those who are forced to learn this "terrible" Russian.

There is one fundamental difference: if in Russian the declension of adjectives depends on the word itself (on its gender, number and case), then in German, in addition to this, it also depends on the article, which, as you know, has no analogues in Russian.

The declension of German adjectives can be divided into three types:

1. Weak - it is really "weak", the form of the adjective almost does not change. Such a declension is applied after the definite article - the article mainly changes.
2. Strong declension - after and pronouns, meaning some kind of "uncertainty".
3. Mixed declension - if the article is missing.

Here we consider the weak declension of adjectives

Its rules are quite simple. As you can see in the table, most adjectives end in -en, the rest end in -e. This type of declension is inherent only in adjectives that are used after:

• After pronouns that are similar to the definite article: diser (this one), jener (that one), jeder (each), welcher (which one), solcher (such), mancher (other), derselbe (the same one), derjenige (the same one). Of course, these also change by birth. Here they are all given in the masculine gender.

As you study this information, notice how the endings of definite articles and nouns change. As you can see, the declension of adjectives is the easiest to remember. Another important point is the "Plural" column. In this number, the adjectives that come after the following words are declined according to the weak type:

• The definite article (der, die, das).
• The same pronouns as mentioned above, and some others. Of course, these plural pronouns will have other forms: diese (these), jede (those), welche (which ones), alle (each), beide (both), solche (such), manche (some), dieselben (those the most), diejenigen (the very ones), sämtliche (all).
• And also (pay attention!) after the pronoun kein and such as mein (mine), unser (our), as well as other possessive pronouns. Here a natural question arises: how do adjectives in the singular decline after such pronouns? For example, how will meine schöne Frau (my beautiful woman) be in We answer: in any reference book, look at the table of mixed declension, because after these pronouns adjectives in units. numbers are inclined precisely according to the mixed type.

  	m. rod	and. genus	cf. genus	plural
  N	Der alt e Mann	Die schon e Frau	Das neu e house	Die breit en Fenster
  G	Des alt en Mann es	Der schon en Frau	Desneu en Houses	Der breit en Fenster
  D	Dem alt en Mann	Der schon en Frau	Dem neu en house	Denbreit en Fenster n
  A	Den alt en Mann	Die schon e Frau	Das neu e house	Die breit en Fenster

After that, in any reference book of the German language, look at other tables:

1. in the singular in the absence of an article (strong declension).
2. Declension table for adjectives in the singular after the indefinite article (mixed declension).
3. It is also worth looking at the adjective declension in separately, although it can also refer to the two types already mentioned earlier: weak and strong. After the indefinite (weak declension - we have already given it in the table) and the definite article (strong declension).
4. declination

Please note that there are patterns in adjective declensions: somewhere, one way or another, there must be endings of a definite article. In the table above, adjectives already have a definite article in front of them. Therefore, adjectives no longer need their endings, which is why the rules for weak declension are so simple. And vice versa, with a strong declension, when there is no article at all before adjectives, the endings of adjectives change like the endings of a definite article.

And a few tips on how to remember these dry tables:

1. Learn the declension of the definite article in detail.
2. Read this article and look at the tables in the handbook carefully once and take the test - there are enough of them on the Internet. After you do or don't complete the adjective matching tasks, you'll feel the need to memorize it all, and you'll also know where to study adjective declensions more closely. The secret of any effective learning is: first the problem, then the solution. And not vice versa.
3. Take in German. It can be any text on a topic of interest to you with parallel translation. Try to compile all the declination tables yourself, and then compare them with the reference book. This will take time, but after that you will most likely no longer need to look at the reference book to find out how this or that adjective is declined.

For some reason, adjective declension is considered a difficult topic. “There are so many endings...” - and the German language is hopelessly compromised. Have you ever met Russian case endings? Come on, form the form of the instrumental case from the words "two of your clean sleeves"! What? did you realize right away? That's right, "with my two clean sleeves" ... Children, by the way, get confused!

Declension, inflection is an ancient and respectable feature of the Indo-European languages. The English language has actually lost its declension, and German retains what existed in all ancient Germanic languages: the declension of adjectives in two types - strong And weak.

By strong declination an adjective without an article is changed, for example:

It can be seen that the basis of the declension here is the same declension of the definite article, which we have long known: der...dem-den, die-der-der-die, das...dem-das. That's just the form of the genitive case "des" in the declension of adjectives will have to say goodbye: in the genitive singular. masculine and neuter adjectives with any type of declension have an ending -en.

Why does the adjective behave like this? Because there are four cases in German, and the language requires them to be distinguished. If the adjective appears without an article, it is forced to take on this function and convey the corresponding case with its endings. This is the strong inclination.

And if the adjective appears with the article? Well, let's start with the definite article. See what happens:

Yes, it's just some kind of resort! .. Behind the article, the adjective feels like behind a stone wall and operates with only two endings: -e And -en. And why bother if the article (or demonstrative pronoun) quite definitely denotes cases? That's what it is weak declination adjective.

You may ask: why then the adjective in a weak form does not have an ending -en in all cases? The fact is that you still need to distinguish between the singular and the plural. In the singular (im.p.) - der gut e Freund, plural - die gut en freunde; in the only - die gut e Idea, plural - die gut en Idea. By the way, according to the weak declension, adjectives of all three genders and in all cases have the same ending in the plural: -en. Now you will see it in the tables yourself.

An adjective with a definite article is translated as “this / this”, etc. - die gute Idea - this is a good idea das gute Buch- this good book etc.

In addition to strong and weak, there is also a mixed declension (see table below). In fact, this means only the declension of adjectives in the singular with the indefinite article ein, as well as the possessive pronouns mein, dein, etc. and the negation of kein. In oblique cases we will see there a universal weak ending -en, because the case will be indicated by the forms of the article eines, einem, einen. And in the singular, the article ein can introduce a noun both masculine and neuter - and therefore a distinction must be made here using the endings of the adjective: ein gut er Freund, but ain't gut es house. And of course, eine gute Idea. But, I repeat, the mixed declension is relevant only for the singular. The explanation is simple: there is no indefinite article in the plural.

strong declination

Singular. Adjective without article

adjective after words: etwas - A little, Viel - a lot of, wenig - few, genug - enough; also after manch - other, some, Welch - Which (if they perform without endings)

Plural. Adjective without article

adjective after numerals: zwei - two, drei - three; also after viele - many, einige - some, mehrere - some, a few, Wenige - few

weak declination

Singular. Adjective with definite article

dieser - this, jener - That, jeder - every, Solcher - such, Welcher - Which, mancher - some, some, some

Plural. Adjective with definite article

adjective after pronouns: myine - my, deine - your etc; after pronouns alle - All, beide - both, Solche - such, Welche - which, keine - none

mixed declension

Single number only

adjective with indefinite article ein; also with possessive pronouns: mein, dein and negation kein

Now a logical question: how to remember all these pronominal "viele-einige ..." on the one hand, and "alle-beide ..." on the other? The demonstrative pronoun dieser is so similar to the definite article der that they are easily grouped together. The rest would be good to learn by heart, but first you should keep in mind: viele schon e Tage (strong declension) - but alle schon en Tage (weak declension).

The pronouns viele and alle are used most often. Similarly, we often have to say meine, deine, Ihre (Freunde, Bücher, etc.). Therefore, be sure to remember: myine gut en freunde.

In German, the form viele - many is used where in Russian we are used to seeing the adverb "many". Wed:

• Da sind viele Studenten. - There are many students there.
• Er hat viele Probleme. - He has a lot of problems.

The most difficult thing in learning any language is the process of memorizing new information, in particular, words, rules, endings, suffixes. Since the Russian language is very different from German, at first, beginners have many difficulties in the learning process. They are connected to a greater extent precisely with this difference - we are accustomed from birth to use our alphabet, words, grammar. Therefore, at the very beginning it is important to properly organize how you will master new material.

Understanding a new topic

Each new topic is given to a beginner in the form of a text, and at the first acquaintance with it, as a rule, there is uncertainty - but will I be able to master it? After reading a new topic for the first time, for its successful analysis, a beginner can highlight key points. In the topic "Declination of adjectives" - these are endings that change in a word depending on which case the word is in and what gender and number it belongs to - masculine, feminine, neuter and singular or plural.

After that, it will be useful to rewrite the parts of the topic that need to be learned by heart in the form of tables and diagrams - this is how they will be remembered the fastest. You can draw an empty table and fill it in from memory, and then check yourself by comparing it with what is written in the topic.

Learning endings in tables

The declension of adjectives depends on the type of article used. There are three in total:

• definite article;
• indefinite article;
• adjectives without an article.

In order to remember how adjectives decline in cases, gender and numbers, you need to learn the endings. How to define them? As in Russian, in German the ending is a modified part of a word that is added to the root. This can be clearly seen in the tables.

Declension of adjectives with the definite article

Declension of adjectives with the indefinite article

Declension of adjectives without article