What are the differences between the various endings of adjectives in German?

In German (unlike in French), adjectives always go before the noun that they are describing. In German, the ending of the adjective has to match both the case, gender, and number of the noun. Take, for example, the feminine noun 'die Katze' (the cat). Looking at the noun you can see that it is both feminine (indicated by the 'die') and it is singular (because of the form of the word ). If it was used in a sentence like so 'die Katze sitzt auf dem Teppich' (the cat sits on the mat), we could then work out the case, whether it is doing the action or not, or is something else. In this example the cat is the subject (actor), and so is in the nominative case. This means that in the sentence 'die schwarz_ Katze sitzt auf dem Teppich' (the cat sits on the mat), the adjectival ending would need to be 'e', because singular, feminine nouns in the nominative case use 'e' on their adjectives. So it would be 'die schwarze Katze sitzt auf dem Teppich'

JT
Answered by Jacob T. German tutor

1385 Views

See similar German GCSE tutors

Related German GCSE answers

All answers ▸

What is the conditional tense?


Why do masculine nouns sometimes change to den instead of der when there isn't a preposition?


Which prepositions take the dative?


Why are certain verbs always followed by the dative case?


We're here to help

contact us iconContact usWhatsapp logoMessage us on Whatsapptelephone icon+44 (0) 203 773 6020
Facebook logoInstagram logoLinkedIn logo

© MyTutorWeb Ltd 2013–2025

Terms & Conditions|Privacy Policy
Cookie Preferences