"Sie arbeitet für den Architekten."

Translation: She works for the architect.

[Hohenems]

I'm sorry for asking a question that most likely has an obvious answer, but I'm not grasping this sentence.
Why is it not "Sie arbeitet für den Architekt"? The "en" on the end makes me think it is plural, but would it not then be "Sie arbeitet für die Architekten"?
Thanks!

[NovKF]

Architekt is an interesting case, in that it becomes Architekten in every case other than the nominative singular. (Unless, of course, it's a female architect, in which case all the singulars are Architektin, and all the plurals are Architektinnen.)

[ph516503]

wow. Just when I think I'm starting to get a handle on German, there's a particular word with weird behaviour.

[deactivated user]

Well, Mark Twain did joke that in German there are more exceptions to a rule than instances of it. And I'm not sure it was a joke.

[Phyllis663500]

amen!

[RAMOSRAUL]

I believe it is one of those "weak names"

[Hohenems]

Thanks! That helped. I googled "weak german nouns" and found this:
"Masculine Nouns Referring to Animals, People, Titles, or Professions
This group of common masculine nouns includes some that end in -e (der Löwe, lion), but there are also other typical endings: -ant (der Kommandant), -ent (der Präsident), -r (der Bär), -t (der Architekt). As you can see, these German nouns often resemble the same word in English, French, or other languages. For nouns in this group you need to add an -en ending in any case other than the nominative: "Er sprach mit dem Präsidenten." (dative)."

[IvanLiu]

So that means whenever you use animals, people, title, profession, you should add -en? Like Ich spreche mit dem Hunden. Is that true?

[Hohenems]

http://german.about.com/od/grammar/a/dernouns.htm

[Shiroryuu]

Maybe it is just me, but after "für" shouldn't we use dative? Plus, den is the plural form in dative, and Architekten is also can be a plural form. I don't really get this.

[greenfire315]

Actually, it should be the opposite. Because there is für, the next part should be accusative. Durch, für, gegen, ohne, and um are always accusative. So I would ticket the "den" unless a native can explain this exception.

[Hohenems]

It is singular, and "den" is fine. Architekten is fine. It is accusative.
der Architeckt = den Architekten in accusative.
See the word forms for "Architekt" here:
http://www.canoo.net/inflection/architekt:N:M

If you read my post up there ^ as a response to Ramosraul from 4 months ago you'll see why Architekt gets the -en ending in accusative.

Hope that helps!

[greenfire315]

Oh that's right haha I remember reading that before. :P Thanks!

[honglog]

what should i say "she works for the architects."

[jaime1989]

I think the sentence should be"Sie arbeitet fuer die Architekten",the word"Architekt"here is like "Student".

[leweskiddy]

Ich hab' früher einen Fehler gemacht, denn ich habe die Antwort im Duden gesucht. Duden sagt: Singular Der Architekt, Den Architekten, Des Architekten, Dem Architekten. Also hat Hohenems endlich die richtige Antwort, glaub' ich.

[leweskiddy]

Ich bin der selbe Meinung als Hohenems - Architekt ist Singular und den ist Akk., aber Architekten ist Plural und den sollte die sein, oder?

[Ptiloo]

Please read above!

[Antoine-]

Interesting. So if the sentence was "Sie arbeitet für die Architekten", only then would we have translated it into architects (plural). Is that right?

[danthejazzman]

I think so, because you're right that the article indicates whether Archiketkten is plural or singular (since there's no change to the noun for plural) and since 'für' indicates that we're going into the accusative, we use die for plurals (and den for masculine singular). So, yeah!

[JuliaSouth1]

Anyone else have a missing "the" in the word choice for this sentence? Or was that just somehow a glitch I got that no one else did, since I don't see anything about it in these comments. "The" was literally not an option, the best I could do was "She works for architect," which I knew was wrong. It marked me wrong (and it was wrong) because the right answer wasn't an option. Yes, I could have switched to keyboard and typed it out, but I wanted to see if it would really mark me wrong when the right answer wasn't possible. It did. And before you say maybe I missed it, the question is still pulled up in my browser and I keep staring at it and laughing, because there is clearly no "the," yet the correction says "you need the article 'the' here." My brain keeps responding with, "no, you need the article 'the' here." Lol

[wsiev13]

Please replace the male speaker!!!!!!!

[Fredly17]

Cool, i get to do this multiple times because i can't figure out the German spelling