"Die Gemeinde hat einen Architekten."
Translation:The community has an architect.
20 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
Shouldn't this be "has architects"? Since /Architekten/ is the plural form?
this is a rare case of end declination. Basically the end of the noun changes. Similar to der Elefant (accusative einen Elefanten)
It's called "-en" declination (at least that's the german grammar name), and it's not rare, it's quite common eg Mensch, Student, ...
compared to Polish or Greek, where every word is declined, I would consider this at least "seldomly used."
I know it's from 2 years ago, but maybe someone else can answer: So saying "The community has architects" will be just dropping the "einen" -> "Die Gemeinde hat Architekten"?
I think so, yes, since in all cases except nominative the singular and the plural forms for "Architekt" are identical.
To add to the confusion, Wiktionary lacks the customary "declension" table for the entry "Architekt".
some masculine nouns are weak and therefore have an -en in the dative, accusative, and genitive case . It's a shame that Duolingo doesn't explain, but here's a handy website: http://germanforenglishspeakers.com/nouns/weak-nouns-the-n-declension/
Could "The church has an architect" be acceptable here? I just talked to two different German speakers yesterday and both of them preferred the use of the word die Gemeinde for church instead of die Kirche. Oh, and I reported it.
Yes it should be accepted. It depends on what portion of the christian church you are apart of, but yes this is very common.
Thanks everyone! I think Duolingo should explain that weak nouns decline.
116
In Germany gemeinden are actually small municipalities - similar in scale to a parish, but with responsibilities like an English borough. So larger ones will employ professionals such as architects. Similar to communes in France.
No. 'Architektin' is a female architect. Also, in this case, Architektin would need 'eine'.
Why don't we say "Ich habe einen Hunden", but "Ich habe einen Hund" as well? When do we change nouns and adjectives? I really don't know when to use these declensions and which one to use. Everybody posts some information about them but only grammatical suffixes of them giving some tables, and what I need is some explanations for their usage. Please help me D:
The short version is just "some do, some don't, and you have to memorise it". The links posted already in this thread are as good as any explanation about that.