Artikli in German. Simple and affordable

Anyone who is just beginning to learn German is confronted with the problem of articles. It is hard for a Russian speaker to understand this topic, because in our speech we do not use anything similar to the article in German. In this article, we are available and simply answer the most common among the newcomers questions on this topic.

Artikli in German are of several kinds: definite, indefinite and zero. Let's consider each of them in order.

Definite article

There are only four of them:

Der - for masculine nouns (der);

Die - for the feminine gender (di);

Das - for the middle genus (das);

Die is a plural (di).

They are used in the following cases:

1. When we know what is at stake. If this subject has already been discussed earlier. For example: der Hund (a certain dog, which has already been mentioned).
2. To denote phenomena unique in their kind, analogues to which do not exist in nature (die Erde - Earth).
3. To denote many geographical objects: rivers, cities, mountains, seas, oceans, streets and so on (die Alpen - Alps).
4. If before our noun is the ordinal number (der dritte Mann - the third person), or the superlative adjective (der schnellste Mann - the fastest person).

Indefinite article

Ein - masculine and middle genus (ain);

Eine is the female gender (aine).

In the present case, there is no article for the plural.

The indefinite article in German is used in the following cases:

1. When we talk about things we do not know (ein Hund is some kind of dog that we hear about for the first time).
2. After the phrase "es gibt" (literally "there"), for simplicity, we can draw an analogy with the English "there is" (Es gibt einen Weg - there is a road here).
3. For designation of a species or class (Der Löwe ist ein Raubtier - a lion is a predatory animal).
4. With the verbs Haben (to have) and Brauchen (need). For example: "Ich habe eine Arbeit" - I have a job.

Zero article

Not all articles in German really are. There is such a thing as the zero article. In fact, this is the absence of the article at all. So, we do not write anything before the noun, if:

1. It denotes a profession or an occupation (Sie ist Ärztin - she is a doctor).
2. Before many of their own names (London ist die Hauptstadt von Großbritannien - London - the capital of Great Britain).
3. To denote the plural (Hier wohnen Menschen - here live people).
4. When designating a chemical substance, a material (aus Gold - from gold).

Almost always the genus of the noun in Russian and the corresponding articles in German differ from each other. For example, if the "girl" is feminine, then in German - the middle one - "das Mädchen". That is, as if "a girl". There is a set of endings with which you can make it easier to determine the kind of a noun, but in most cases there is only one way out - remember.

Another difficulty is the declension of the article in the German language. As in Russian, we do not say: "I see a girl," as well as in German. Every article tends by case. The task is made easier by the fact that there are only four cases here: Nominativ (nominative), Genetiv (genitive), Dativ (dative) and Akkusativ (like accusative). Declension should be simply remembered. For your convenience, we will list the table below.

As for the indefinite articles, they tend to the same prinitsipu. For example, the male article ein in Akk will be einen, just -en is added to it. So it happens with all the other articles.