45 Comments
If DIE is for plural, why is it "The Woman Drinks Water" instead "The WOMEN Drinks Water"?
Die is not only for plural. Die is also for feminine. In this case is feminine: Die Frau (feminin) Die Frauen (plural)
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If that's the rule for "die", I can't figure why "Das" is used for "Mädchen".
We are talking about grammatical gender here. They have very little to nothing to do with the meaning of the noun. E.g. all nouns which last syllable is -ung, -heit, -keit and -schaft are feminine. That leads to the situation that the word "Mannschaft" (team) is feminine although it only consists of the word for man and the ending. Another "rule": all nouns with -chen or -lein as last syllable are neuter. Why? That's why! There really is no logic. Do not try to find one.
In my opinion calling the different articles masculine, feminine and neuter raises more problems than it solves (and that is the case for French, Spanish, etc. as well), but is the established way to classify it.
Just think of it as 3 different kinds nouns the r-nouns, the e-nouns and the s-nouns. Correspondingly they have the definite articles der , die and das . Later that will help you when you have to inflect adjectives.
Like "ein schöner Mann", "eine schöne Frau", "ein schönes Kind"
This explains it much better than I ever could:
Why does "Die Frau trinkt Wasser" mean "the lady drinks water" whereas "Du trinkst" means "You are drinking"? Why not "You drink"?
I believe that is also an acceptable translation of that phrase. Type it in next time, and it'll say correct but show you the '' you are drinking'' translation as well. So the first phrase could also be translated ''the woman is drinking water.''
I wrote 'the lady drinks water' but the app said it should be 'woman' instead of 'lady'. Is there any difference??
Isn't it that "trinkt" must be translated as "is drinking"? Because "trinke" is translated as "drinks".
so how do you know what gender a word is if if its not gendered with out ever seeing it before? or just in general how do you know. Danke!
You must learn the gender along with the word, individually. i.e. instead of learning "water = Wasser", you memorize "water = die Wasser". There are a few 'tips', such as "If the word ends with -ig, -ling, -or, or -ismus, chances are it will be neutral gender (das)". But these are not even really rules, so in the end you must learn the gender individually for each word. Sorry! :)
Dankeschön, it did help a little, but I think I'll eventually get the hang of it. After all, I would do anything to learn German! Oh and for your example, you wrote 'Die Wasser' isn't it 'Das Wasser'?
"the girl" is not correct because "Frau" is an adult so it's a woman or a wife ( actually the correction they gave you is not really correct because "wife" is when you are married, so in this case it should be the woman). the girl is more often used for a child so it would be in german "Mädchen" i hope this helps you :)
I cant figure out whether its the woman or a woman in any of these. Could someone explain the difference to me?
Eine Frau = a woman - it's for some woman Die Frau = the woman - it's for the specific woman
a/an = ein, eine ... ein for musculine and neuter ... eine for fiminine. So a woman = eine frau ...&.... the = die, der, das ... der for musculine .. die for feminine .. das for neuter. So the woman =die frau
I am confused: Wikipedia lists "das" as the definite article for feminine words. Are "das" and "die" both acceptable in this case, or is wiki wrong?
What's the difference between the usage of 'Die' and 'Der'? As in, we say 'Der Mann' but 'Die Frau'
I thought German would be far more difficult,but I guess it'll get harder farther into the learning.
