Not sure of the article? Type a German noun and see its gender, plural and meaning, plus the ending rule when there is one.
About a third of German nouns follow an ending rule. The most reliable ones:
| Ending | Gender | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| -ung, -heit, -keit, -schaft, -ion, -tät, -ik | die | die Wohnung, die Freiheit, die Universität |
| -chen, -lein | das | das Mädchen, das Brötchen |
| -ment, -um | das (mostly) | das Dokument, das Zentrum |
| -ling, -ismus, -or | der | der Frühling, der Tourismus, der Motor |
| -e | die (often) | die Straße, but der Name, der Käse |
For compound nouns, the last part decides: die Tür → die Haustür; der Schlüssel → der Haustürschlüssel.
The article is not decoration: it changes with the case (der Termin becomes den Termin in the accusative and dem Termin in the dative), adjective endings depend on it, and pronouns refer back to it (der Stuhl … er, die Lampe … sie). A wrong gender does not usually stop people understanding you, but it spreads mistakes through the whole sentence, and exams count it. That is why it pays to learn every noun as a unit of article, word and plural from your first day.
Write every new noun with its article and plural, and say them together out loud: der Termin, die Termine. Colour-code your notes (blue for der, red for die, green for das). Practise with the der, die, das trainer and learn nouns in topics with the vocabulary lists.
For many endings yes (see the table), but many common nouns have no rule and must be learned with their article.
Always die: der Tisch, die Tische; das Kind, die Kinder.
No, always on the last word: das Haus and die Tür give die Haustür, and der Schlüssel gives der Haustürschlüssel. So once you know the gender of the last part, you know the gender of the whole compound.
The lookup covers the nouns used in our lessons and vocabulary lists. For other nouns, check a dictionary such as Duden.
