3. Nouns: gender and plural

Gender is a grammatical class, not biology, and most nouns can be predicted from their ending, their meaning or their last compound element. Learn the patterns below, then store every new noun as one unit: article + noun + plural (der Tisch, -e).

Why gender exists

Gender is an old Indo-European noun-classification system. Its job today is agreement: articles, adjectives and pronouns copy the noun’s class, so a listener can track which word refers to which. In Der Hund sah die Katze. Sie lief weg, the feminine sie can only mean the cat. Gender also decides which case endings appear, which is why a wrong gender produces a wrong case form.

Predictable patterns

Gender	Endings	Meaning groups
Masculine (der)	-er for people and tools (Lehrer, Rechner), -ling, -ismus, -ist, -or, -ant, -ig (König), -ich (Teppich)	Days, months, seasons, weather (Regen, Schnee), compass points, most alcoholic drinks (der Wein, but das Bier), car brands, many one-syllable nouns from verb stems (der Lauf, der Gang, der Sprung)
Feminine (die)	-ung, -heit, -keit, -schaft, -ion, -tät, -ie, -ik, -enz, -anz, -ur, -ei, and most nouns in -e	Numbers as nouns (die Eins), most trees and flowers (die Eiche, die Rose), ships and motorbikes
Neuter (das)	-chen and -lein (always: das Mädchen), -ment, -um, -tum (mostly), Ge- + stem collectives (das Gebäude, das Gebirge)	Nouns made from infinitives (das Essen, das Lernen), colours and languages as nouns (das Rot, das Deutsch), most metals (das Gold), young animals (das Kalb), hotels, cafés and cinemas

The -e = feminine rule holds for most nouns. Learn the exceptions as a list: der Junge, der Name, der Käse, der Kunde, das Auge, das Ende, das Interesse.

Compounds take the gender of their last element. das Haus + die Tür = die Haustür; die Arbeit + der Platz = der Arbeitsplatz. One known head noun gives you the gender of hundreds of compounds.

Plural formation

Pattern	Typical for	Examples
-e, often with umlaut	Masculine and neuter one-syllable nouns	der Tag → Tage, der Baum → Bäume, das Jahr → Jahre
-er, with umlaut where possible	Neuter one-syllable nouns	das Kind → Kinder, das Haus → Häuser
-(e)n	Almost all feminine nouns; weak masculine nouns	die Frau → Frauen, die Lampe → Lampen, der Student → Studenten
No ending, sometimes umlaut	Masculine and neuter nouns in -er, -el, -en, -chen, -lein	der Lehrer → Lehrer, der Vater → Väter, das Mädchen → Mädchen
-s	Loanwords, abbreviations, nouns ending in a vowel other than -e	das Auto → Autos, das Handy → Handys, die Oma → Omas

The plural article is the same for all three genders: die (nominative and accusative), den (dative, and the noun adds -n if it can: den Kindern), der (genitive).

Weak masculine nouns (n-Deklination)

A small group of masculine nouns add -(e)n in every case except nominative singular: der Kollege, den Kollegen, dem Kollegen, des Kollegen. Members of the group:

• Masculine nouns in -e for people and animals: der Junge, der Kollege, der Kunde, der Löwe
• Masculine nouns in -ent, -ant, -ist, -at, -oge, -graf: der Student, der Praktikant, der Journalist, der Kandidat, der Biologe, der Fotograf
• A short list to memorise: der Mensch, der Herr (den Herrn), der Nachbar, der Bär, der Held, der Prinz
• A few abstract nouns add -ns in the genitive: der Name → des Namens, also der Gedanke, der Glaube, der Buchstabe

Forgetting this -n is one of the most visible B1 errors: Ich habe einen Kunde getroffen should be einen Kunden.

The questions to ask of a new noun

What is its last element, and does that settle the gender? What is its ending? Is it a person, a process, an abstract quality or a collective? Is it a weak masculine? When you look a noun up, write the dictionary notation (die Wohnung, -en; der Kunde, -n, -n) so gender, plural and weak declension are stored together.