You use "eine" for nouns that are grammatically feminine and "ein" for nouns that are grammatically masculine or neuter.

The gender of a noun (whether it's masculine, feminine, or neuter) can't always be predicted, so you should learn the gender along with the word.

So instead of learning "Frau", learn "eine Frau" or "die Frau" so that you will know that it's feminine.

With a woman it may seem obvious, but with "das Messer, die Gabel, der Löffel" (the knife, the fork, the spoon) it's not particularly obvious why each implement has the gender that it does.

Both are 'a' word only but ein is used for male gender as well as for girl and eine is used for female gender

eine is usually feminine and ein is usually masculine

Ones feminine the other. Is masculine. Like in Spanish, adding "a" makes it feminine. In German, adding the "e" makes it feminine

Eine in for females and ein is for male

All ladies are women, but not all women are ladies.

What that means is: "lady" is a word which tends to ascribe/imply certain virtuous traits to a woman, which is otherwise a purely biological distinction (i.e., female). It is the polite and genteel way of referring to a woman.

Consider that "Lady"--in the context of "Lady MacBeth" or "Lady Diana Spencer"--is a royal title, akin to "Lord".

And now, stand by for complaints that "Lady" is demeaning and unacceptably misogynistic in modern society.

It's not totally wrong.

»Frau» means «wife» or «woman» according to the context.

If you have «Die Frau» (the woman) alone, it's never the wife.

Here, you have not really a context, that's difficult to know if it's the woman or the wife.

I'm pretty sure Duolingo only excepts one valid answer.

Subtly pronounced. It is not nearly as strongly enunciated as in English. It makes me think a little of Elmer Fudd.

The capitals are really essential in German.

The "an/a" distinction is not relevant auf Deutsch. Easiest solution is to translate the article along with the noun. So, use "ich bin ein Anfänger" or "I am ein Anfänger."

Though I realize this question is three months old, I'd just like to chip in for any future readers.

I would disagree with zengator. True, the "a/an" distinction does not apply to German grammar, but while using a loanword in an English sentence it would. Words beginning with a vowel use "an" and words beginning with a consonant use "a".

While writing it out as "I am ein Anfänger" would be understood here, or in other bilingual circumstances, I would generally be tempted to use,

"I am an Anfänger."

It is rather difficult to write out how to pronounce a word. Better you should refer to various websites with recordings, such as:
- https://forvo.com/search/eine/de/
- http://www.dict.cc/?s=eine

Age.

"Boy/Junge" and "girl/Mädchen" imply youth, whereas "Mann/Man" and "Frau/Woman" imply adulthood.

Assuming that you meant to close the quotes after the second man, and that your question is basically about whether capitalizing the "A" makes a difference: no, not to die Eule. But one should still strive to practice the rules regarding capitalization, which are fairly simple:

• in English, capitalize the first word in a sentence and all proper names
• auf Deutsch, großschreiben das erste Wort des Satz und alle Substantive oder Namen

No you can not. That would be "A woman man." or "A woman, man."

The phrase (it is not a sentence) presented is similar to a list. Either each item in the list gets its own article, or no items have an article. Additionally, if one uses articles, all would normally be either definite (der, die, oder das) or indefinite (ein oder eine).

An argument can be made that one could mix indefinite articles with no articles if the list were composed of both singular (receiving an article) and plural items, e.g.:

• a man
• a woman
• children
• a dog
• cats
• a horse

This is because there is no plural indefinite article.

Potentially, in specific context, one could mix definite and indefinite, but consistency and organized thought prefer no mixture.

No. eine has a shwa at the end - the indistinct vowel found in the first syllable of about.

It is used for both in German - there is no distinction in writing between "one" and "a".

One is to count, «a» is the article. (Ein/eine). If you don't count, it's the normal article «a man».

None of the words is in all caps.

But all the nouns in this sentence have their first letter capitalised because all nouns in German have their first letter capitalised.

It's a rule of German spelling just like English has a rule capitalising things such as "French" or "July" which are lower-case in some other languages.

Declension. Eine is for feminine; ein is for masculine (in the Nominativ) or neuter (Nominativ und/oder Akkusativ).

Not to scare you off, but take a look at this link at polydog.org for a nice primer.

1 = one, not a/an.

1 is to count. «a/an» is an article.

There are various pronunciations of the sound "r" in both Germany and France.

But the most common or standard version is the same in both languages -- a voiced uvular fricative [ʁ], not a trill.

In the word Frau, though, it is likely to sound like an unvoiced uvular or velar fricative [χ~x], due to voicing assimilation after the unvoiced [f].

Perhaps to reinforce the basic nominative forms as a contrast to the genitive declension.

Because when you say "Frau", is does NOT mean "miss".

"Miss" before a name, as a title, is "Fräulein", though that title (like "Miss") is going out of fashion.

"Frau" as a title before a name is "Mrs" or, if you want "Ms" (which is pronounced "miz", as far as I know -- not "miss").

But when used by itself (not in front of a name), it cannot mean that.

"lady" is a more polite word than "woman", and would be better translated by Dame in German.

"women" is plural, so it's also wrong.

You need to check your spelling. You should type: a womAn, a man. WomEn is the plural form but we want the singular: woman.

No -- not "the" woman/man but "a" woman/man.

You may need to check your spelling. Duolingo can be very specific about certain terms. For example, many people type "a womEn" when the correct answer is "a womAn". If you can send your answer, we may be able to explain what the problem is.

However, any problems you experience with the app/website should be reported by clicking "report a problem". If you are using the app on your phone, this will appear as a flag after answering the question. By reporting the problem this way, the technical team can work to fix the issue.

The "best" translation, the one I see at the top of this sentence discussion page, has "A woman, a man".

What did you type? "An woman", perhaps? What were you "corrected" to ?

Hey GHkHEy, I'm not sure what the two things you are comparing are exactly. Are you inquiring about the difference between "Ein" and "Eine"? If so, the former is used when referring to a single masculine or neuter noun. The latter is used when referring to a single feminine noun.
Additionally, this is unaffected by the following word's vowel or consonant sound (unlike English).

e.g.
Ein Apfel (masc.) = An apple
Ein Kind (neut.) = A child
Eine Frau (fem.) = A woman

You can turn it off in settings... https://www.duolingo.com/settings/account

There is context here -- eine Frau is not in a possessive context, so the meaning "wife" is ruled out, and Frau is being treated as a noun (with indefinite article before it) rather than as a title before a family name, so the meaning "Mrs" is ruled out. Only the primary meaning "woman" is possible here.

See Mizinamo's response to KittyKat10983 above.

Why «one» man? It's a woman, a man. One = 1.

And why «lady»? Lady = Dame in German.

Welcome to DuoLingo. You'll find that most of the time--especially when just beginning--that any question you might have has already been asked and answered in the comments.

Bonus: when looking for your specific question, you'll often find answers to questions you haven't had yet.

Please include your entire answer when asking a question. The rationale behind the correction often lies in the other words. "A woman, a man" is in fact the preferred answer.

ein is used for masculine and neuter nouns.

The noun Mädchen is grammatically neuter -- that is why it takes ein.

The grammatical gender of nouns does not necessarily relate to the biological gender of the thing that the word refers to.

Löffel "spoon" is masculine, even though it's not even alive. Person is feminine, even though a person can be male or female. And so on.

You have to learn the grammatical gender of a word when you learn the word.

Where is it showing that "the woman, a man" is a correct translation of "Eine Frau, ein Mann"? Please provide a screen shot, because it is quite likely you are simply not noticing the distinction between "die" und "eine".

I think you're confusing the word "vowel" with "indefinite articles".

The vowels are A, E, I, O, U, Ä, Ö, und Ü (lc: a, e, i, o, u, ä, ö, und ü).

In English, one vowel--"a"--is also the indefinite article used when the following word begins with a consonant sound. (If the following word begins with a vowel sound, then the indefinite article used is "an".) Examples:

• a dog, a bird, a car, a big ape
• an apple, an uncle, an orange, an unhappy camper
• a uniform
• an honest man
• a hotel, an hotel

The last three examples show how it is the initial sound of the following word that makes a difference. The final example may actually vary depending on how "hotel" is pronounced. In the U.S., the h is pronounced, and so "a" is used. In the U.K., the h may not be pronounced (so the word sounds more like "oh-tell") and so "an" is used.

Auf Deutsch the indefinite article is ein, which is inflected to agree in number and Gender with the noun it is introducing: ein, eine, einer, eines, einen, oder einem. (Note that eins--with only the initial e--is the German word for "one".)

You might want to read this concerning indefinite articles, and to study this declension table.

Only in a possessive context, e.g. meine Frau = “my wife”.

Otherwise it is just “woman”.

Words are capitalized (first letter only) in German when they:

1. are the first word in a sentence,
2. are proper nouns (i.e., names such as James or Mary or Rover)
3. are nouns
4. are the second-person, formal pronouns (Sie, Ihr, Ihnen, etc)

Why? Well, you may as well ask why rules 1 and 2 are used in English, Spanish, French, and many (most? all?) European languages. Convention. Protocol. Tradition.

(Note that unlike English, the first-person pronoun, ich, is not capitalized, unless rule 1 applies.)

It's easier to read if everyone agrees on a standard spelling.

Capitalisation happens to be part of the standardised spelling rules.

Genau. How is the system supposed to know whether you're:

• (a) confused about whether Frau means "woman" or "man" (and vice-versa) or

• (b) so proficient at learning new languages that you're ready to start mixing and shifting and using all sorts of creative and abstract alternatives and variations?

The answer is: it can't. So, instead, it treats anyone working at a beginner level as a beginner. So, if you are an expert, perhaps this is not the place for you.

eine can mean "one" or "a" or "an".

ein can mean "one" or "a" or "an".

The distinction between the two has to do with grammatical gender: ein before masculine or neuter nouns, eine before feminine nouns. It's completely unrelated to whether English would use "a", "an", or "one".

When you count, you say «one man», in English, you normally would use the article «a/an» when you are not counting things.