# Die Deklination und der Plural



## ROLANDO GARZON

Zuerst für alle, die diese Worte lesen. Ich kann noch nicht Deutsch, ich lerne es gerade.


Hallo, ich habe eine Frage: es gibt eine "leicht" oder vorzuziehend Weise zu die Deklination und der Plural lernen?

Danke für deine Hilfe



El poder está en el conocimiento
The power ist in the Knowledge
Die Macht ist im Wissen


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## Jana337

ROLANDO GARZON said:
			
		

> Hallo, ich habe eine Frage: es gibt eine "leichte" oder vorzuziehende not a good word Weise, die Deklination und den Plural zu lernen?
> 
> Danke für deine eure Hilfe


Declination: I am afraid you will have to ram it down your throat. You could prepare flash cards if it is your way of learning, but there's no magic way.

Plural: Learn it with new words as they come and observe the patterns. You will be able to guess many plurals correctly very soon.

A rule of thumb:
masculine: add -e and an Umlaut if possible
feminine: add -en
neutral: add -er and an Umlaut if possible



Jana


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## gaer

Jana337 said:
			
		

> Declination: I am afraid you will have to ram it down your throat. You could prepare flash cards if it is your way of learning, but there's no magic way.


I could not agree more. Let me share what works for me. My point of view may be unusual, but I doubt very much that I am unique.

It has always helped me to absorb correct German. Because I am a person who preferes reading and writing to speaking and listening, and this is often true in English as well, I absorb patterns subconsciously through reading.

But others do it through listening. Here are guidelines that I find useful:

1. No matter what language we speak of, and this includes are own native languages, our passive vocabulary always exceeds our active vocabulary. Going one step farther: we will always understand more than we can use. Concentrate on understanding things that are a level or two (at least) above what you are trying to express.

2. Although it is misleading to suggest that adults should learn in the same manner as children, for me there was some value in this idea. Rather than using textbooks, I began reading books for very young children. German children. These books were always more difficult that reading selections in textbooks, but they were much more useful. I moved from these books to those for older children, step by step, in what would be rather close to what native children would do while learning to read.

3. In the end, all the rules in the world have not helped me with cases and plurals in advance.. I have always learned the rules AFTER I have absorbed them, to some extent, without realizing exactly what they were.

4. It is probably most useful to pay careful attention to any cases or plurals that cause misunderstanding. An elementary example: "das Mädchen". It is impossible to read without stumbling over this word when it is linked to a pronoun. Es? Referring to a female? Or es, referring to a wife, "das Weib"?

"Das Mädchen sagte, es sollte in die Stadt, und es sei ihm so zwider, es dürfe fast nicht."

link

This is an extreme case, since the problem is much more extreme in older German text, but it illustrates a point: analyse what gives you problems, what makes you stumble. Find out the rules for problems, let the other things go. It's not what teachers recommened in classes, but it leads to success more quickly, in my opinion.

Jana, I am especially interested in your opinion about this, since German is not your first language and you have mastered it to such a large extent!

Gaer


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## Jana337

> Jana, I am especially interested in your opinion about this, since German is not your first language and you have mastered it to such a large extent!


Sprachgefühl, Sprachgefühl, Sprachgefühl.  Sorry if I disappointed you but I really do not have much to tell you. But I had to ram declinations (I mean particularly adjective endings; the rest was quite automatic) down my throat, yes. I did it in a couple of days. It was boooooooooooring but I recommend this way to any learner, otherwise the frustration at not being able to say a simple sentence without mistakes will never end. 

Jana


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## gaer

Jana337 said:
			
		

> Sprachgefühl, Sprachgefühl, Sprachgefühl.  Sorry if I disappointed you but I really do not have much to tell you. But I had to ram declinations (I mean particularly adjective endings; the rest was quite automatic) down my throat, yes. I did it in a couple of days. It was boooooooooooring but I recommend this way to any learner, otherwise the frustration at not being able to say a simple sentence without mistakes will never end.
> 
> Jana


I understand what you are saying, but I have to make one point: I picked up everything in music just as quickly as you pick up languages, in a flash, but if I taught my students in this way, I would not only fail, I would lose them all and go broke.

In my own way I did much the same thing as you did, but instead of absorbing it in a couple days, it took a couple years. In addition, I was not able to absorb the rules until I had vocabulary to work with. I could understand the rules, but I could not use them.

I think it is very important to make it clear that when and how rules are learned, regardless of how talented you are, may take place in a very different way depending on what you want to do with the language. I was always primarily interested in reading, so I had more time to "let things get in, in their own time". 

*If your goal is to communicate verbally AND to do so without making mistakes as an adult or older teen, I think your way is the only way!*

Gaer


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## englishman

ROLANDO GARZON said:
			
		

> Zuerst für alle, die diese Worte lesen. Ich kann noch nicht Deutsch, ich lerne es gerade.
> 
> 
> Hallo, ich habe eine Frage: es gibt eine "leicht" oder vorzuziehend Weise zu die Deklination und der Plural lernen?
> 
> Danke für deine Hilfe
> 
> 
> 
> El poder está en el conocimiento
> The power ist in the Knowledge
> Die Macht ist im Wissen


There are several problems.

1. You must learn the declinations
2. You must learn the gender of nouns
3. You must be able to decline a given adjective/noun pair without conscious effort
4. You must be learn to comprehend the meaning of the declinations without effort.

These are all somewhat different aspects of the same problem. For example: 

"Der Mann gibt den Ball der alten Frau"

uses the word "der" twice, but the two meanings differ. You need to get to the point where you know that the second "der" means "to the", and is not a masculine nominative "der".

The only useful suggestion I can make for learning the declinations is learn it in "article/adjective/noun" form, like:

der gute Mann
den guten Mann
des guten Mannes
dem guten Mann

and so on.


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## Whodunit

englishman said:
			
		

> "Der Mann gibt den Ball der alten Frau"


 
Just a small correction: The dative usually comes before the accusative. 

Here's yet another sentence where you have to observe very well, what each article can mean:

Der Frau, die dem Mann einst das Haus des Königs gezeigt hat, will der Mann später die Ehe versprechen.

Nom./Gen./Dat./Akk.
die/der/der/die - feminine nouns
der/des/dem/den - masculine nouns
das/des/dem/das - neuter nouns

literally:
To the woman, who to the man once the house showed, wants the man later the marriage to promise.

so that you can understand it:
The man wants to promise to marry the woman who once showed the house to the man.

It might not make much sense, but it gives you the idea of how different articles can work in German.


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## Henryk

> Just a small correction: The dative usually comes before the accusative.


Muss nicht sein. Klingt zwar flüssiger, aber es ist ein wenig zu pedantisch, das als inkorrekt zu bezeichnen.


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## Whodunit

Henryk said:
			
		

> Muss nicht sein. Klingt zwar flüssiger, aber es ist ein wenig zu pedantisch, das als inkorrekt zu bezeichnen.


 
Ich glaube, es gibt diese Regel sogar. Wir müssen halt mal auf die warten, die Deutsch als Fremdsprache lernen. 

"Gib das Buch mir!" ist nicht falsch, WENN es der Betonung zugute kommen soll. Es heißt hier "Gib das Buch _nur mir_ und keinem anderen".


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## Jana337

Whodunit said:
			
		

> Ich glaube, es gibt diese Regel sogar. Wir müssen halt mal auf die warten, die Deutsch als Fremdsprache lernen.


Ich bin keine Germanistin und außerdem leite ich Regeln lieber ab statt sie zu lernen - also ohne Gewähr: Bei Pronomen wäre es ein Fehler, bei Substantiven ist es lockerer. Ich empfinde den Satz überhaupt nicht als falsch.

Jana


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## cyanista

Ja, ich glaube, bei Substantiven ist beides möglich; es kommt darauf an, was man betont.

Ich habe das Buch meiner Freundin geliehen. (Wichtig ist "wem?")
Ich habe meiner Freundin etwas Geld geliehen. (Wichtig ist "was?")

Pronomen stehen generell vor dem Substantiv, außer wenn sie mit besonderem Nachdruck betont werden, wie in Whos Beispiel.


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## gaer

Whodunit said:
			
		

> Just a small correction: The dative usually comes before the accusative.


I was not sure if you were talking about the order of the cases, as used in sentences, or the order in which they occur in sentences.

At any rate, the order in which cases are taught in most textbooks in English, books teaching teaching German, is usually this:

nominative
accusative
dative
genitive

link

The reason for this, I think, is the similarity between nominative and accusative in neuter and feminine and a more subtle connection between dative and genitive.

I am taking an additional "liberty" by putting neuter second:
m n f pl
-------------------------------
nominative: der *das die die*
accusative: den *das die die*
dative: *dem dem* *der* den
genitive: *des des* *der* der

The green shows where nominative and accusative are the same. Red shows where dative and genitive are the same.

Blue shows that in masculine and neuter "dem", in dative, changes to "des", in genitive.

Rembember that the order you use to memorize the articles does not matter so long as it results in the quickest possible understanding of the pattern. By using this order, I got the rules immediately. I make no claim to being able to USE them easily!


> Here's yet another sentence where you have to observe very well, what each "das" can mean:
> 
> Der Frau, die dem Mann einst das Haus des Königs gezeigt hat, will der Mann später die Ehe versprechen.


That's a clever sentence, but I could never have learned such as sentence when I started. I believe this is much too advanced for people who are beginners, which I believe is what this thread is about. For advanced people, it is an excellent example.


> Nom./Gen./Dat./Akk.
> die/der/der/die - feminine nouns
> der/des/dem/den - masculine nouns
> das/des/dem/das - neuter nouns


To me this order is totally illogical. The first time I saw it, I immediately made my own chart, with the order I gave above. I need to see patterns. With the order in which you have presented the articles, I see no pattern. I know it is there, but I can't see it. 

Gaer


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## Kajjo

gaer said:
			
		

> [Nom - Gen - Dat - Akk] To me this order is totally illogical. The first time I saw it, I immediately made my own chart, with the order I gave above. I need to see patterns. With the order in which you have presented the articles, I see no pattern. I know it is there, but I can't see it.



Tja, so sind die Menschen verschieden! Ich selbst bin ein stimmhafter Verfechter genau dieser Reihenfolge. Man sagt im Deutschen ja sogar "der zweite Fall" (Genitiv) oder "der dritte Fall" (Dativ), so daß die Reihenfolge im Deutschen auf keinen Fall durcheinandergebracht werden darf! Ursprung dieser Reihenfolge ist das Lateinische, wo dies schon seit klassischer Zeit so gelehrt wird. Jede Abweichung davon finde ich höchst verwirrend!

Umso erstaunter war ich, feststellen zu müssen, daß die meisten modernen "Deutsch-als-Fremdsprache"-Lehrwerke eine andere Reihenfolge verwenden, die sich eher an der Häufigkeit der Kasus orientiert. Schrecklich! Soweit ich es ermitteln konnte, wurde die Reihenfolge reformiert in einem Kampf gegen althergebrachte, lateinisch-gebildete Kultur und dem allgemeinen Reformwillen gegenüber der deutschen Sprache. Da sieht es wohl moderner aus, dem angelsächsischem System zu folgen. Hauptsache anders, steigert wohl die Auflage der Werke...

Aus der Distanz gesehen ist es natürlich völlig egal, in welcher Reihenfolge man die Fälle ordnet -- allerdings ist ein Konsens darüber praktisch und genau jener wurde nun im deutschen Raum absichtlich gebrochen. *seufz*

Kajjo


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## gaer

Jana337 said:
			
		

> Ich bin keine Germanistin und außerdem leite ich Regeln lieber ab statt sie zu lernen - also ohne Gewähr: Bei Pronomen wäre es ein Fehler, bei Substantiven ist es lockerer. Ich empfinde den Satz überhaupt nicht als falsch.
> 
> Jana


Jana, I feel you all are discussing this subject on two levels. There are most definitely basic rules of "right and wrong" that are taught to beginners. If we are talking to people who are learning on an elementary level, I think learning what is generally taught is important, otherwise people will become very confused.

On a more advanced level, we all know that the "rules" are "bent", for many reasons you have discussed! 

It might be useful to sum up the rules that are generally taught, which I think has already been done in another thread. Then if people are interested in how and why they are not always followed, they could ask.

Question: does this discussion belong here, since it is no longer about declination and plurals but about the order in which nouns (and pronouns) appear in a sentence, according to case?

Gaer


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## Jana337

> Question: does this discussion belong here, since it is no longer about declination and plurals but about the order in which nouns (and pronouns) appear in a sentence, according to case?


I think it would be great to discuss this in another thread. Or to revive an old one (I cannot remember any at the moment, though). 

Jana


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## Whodunit

Kajjo said:
			
		

> Tja, so sind die Menschen verschieden! Ich selbst bin ein stimmhafter Verfechter genau dieser Reihenfolge. Man sagt im Deutschen ja sogar "der zweite Fall" (Genitiv) oder "der dritte Fall" (Dativ), so daß die Reihenfolge im Deutschen auf keinen Fall durcheinandergebracht werden darf! Ursprung dieser Reihenfolge ist das Lateinische, wo dies schon seit klassischer Zeit so gelehrt wird. Jede Abweichung davon finde ich höchst verwirrend!


 
Ich war zunächst auch sehr überrascht, diese "Lernmethode" zu sehen. Ich ändere mich gerne, aber da mir immer N-G-D-A eingebläut wurde und ich das auch im Lateinunterricht (+ Ablativ und Vokativ) und im Tschechischen (plus Vokativ, Lokativ und Instrumental) so lerne, fällt es mir schwer, mich umzustellen.

Auch die Bezeichungen "zweiter/vierter Fall" müssten somit geändert werden.


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## Jana337

> To me this order is totally illogical. The first time I saw it, I immediately made my own chart, with the order I gave above. I need to see patterns. With the order in which you have presented the articles, I see no pattern. I know it is there, but I can't see it.


Ach so, endlich weiß ich, warum man an der Reihenfolge rüttelt - wegen Leute wie Du!  Für mich persönlich hat die Reihenfolge beim Lernen überhaupt keine Bedeutung, aber es hat mich immer geärgert, schräge Reihenfolgen zu sehen. Ich hatte überhaupt keine Ahnung, dass es einigen das Lernen vereinfacher soll (und noch immer kann ich es nicht so richtig nachvollziehen, aber gut). Wirklich seltsam. 

Bei uns benutzt man an der Grundschule in den Tschechischstunden überhaupt keine lateinischen Namen. Man sagt einfach "der erste/.../siebte Fall". Hoffentlich fällt keinem ein, es zu ändern!

Jana


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## Kajjo

Jana337 said:
			
		

> Bei uns benutzt man an der Grundschule in den Tschechischstunden überhaupt keine lateinischen Namen. Man sagt einfach "der erste/.../siebte Fall". Hoffentlich fällt keinem ein, es zu ändern!



Tja, das kann man wirklich nur hoffen. auch im Deutschen steht ja die alte "der erste, zweite, ... Fall" neben den Bezeichnungen Nominativ, Genitiv, ... -- und ausgerechnet die Gegner der lateinischen Leitkultur haben nun die _Numerierung_ bzw. Reihenfolge geändert, aber die _lateinischen_ Namen beibehalten. Ich sag's ja, wenn man keine Ahnung hat, soll man die Finger davon lassen. Aber so ist es nun mal mit den Möchtergern-Reformern inunserem Lande... das erinnert mich an andere Reform-Themen hier!

Kajjo


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## gaer

Kajjo said:
			
		

> Tja, das kann man wirklich nur hoffen. auch im Deutschen steht ja die alte "der erste, zweite, ... Fall" neben den Bezeichnungen Nominativ, Genitiv, ... -- und ausgerechnet die Gegner der lateinischen Leitkultur haben nun die _Numerierung_ bzw. Reihenfolge geändert, aber die _lateinischen_ Namen beibehalten. Ich sag's ja, wenn man keine Ahnung hat, soll man die Finger davon lassen. Aber so ist es nun mal mit den Möchtergern-Reformern inunserem Lande... das erinnert mich an andere Reform-Themen hier!
> 
> Kajjo


Kajjo, Jana, please don't think that I am recommending, supporting or defending ANY change in the way German is taught in Germany. Nor am I suggesting that it should be changed in any country other than an English speaking one, but if you will bear with me for a second, perhaps you will see why we need a "boost" or "crutch" in the beginning.

Please remember that we start out with no concept of gender. This in itself makes English highly unusual. If you start with German, I think that moving to languages like Spanish and even French, with only two genders, is actually a simplification. I myself have become so used to three genders that I wonder where the neuter nouns have gone to in Spanish. 

Using your terms in English, the idea of first, second, third and fourth case is a very easy idea for me. I have no trouble with it at all. However, I can tell you from my own personal experience that many English speakers with no knowledge at all of any foreign language find rearranging the patterns very helpful *in the beginning*. I hope you understand that point. Rearranging the tables presented was a temporary crutch. It allowed me to see that accusative was going to be only a minor problem, only changing for masculine. It allowed others to suddenly grasp what was happening and instantly raise their grades when a more tradional approach had been taught.

It allowed me to view the plurals moving in this way: die, die, den, der. It allowed me to see many other connections. But once I got it, then it made no difference to see:

m f n pl
------
der die das die—1st case 
des der des der—2nd case
dem der dem den—3rd case
den die das die—4th case

Or as Who did it, though I'm not sure why he started with feminine nouns, and the plurals are missing:

Nom./Gen./Dat./Akk.
die/der/der/die - feminine nouns
der/des/dem/den - masculine nouns
das/des/dem/das - neuter nouns
(plurals???)

My main point: I'm not trying to reform how German (or any other language) is taught. Instead, I am in favor of looking at patterns from as many views as possible and trying to find the most logical way to link data as I learn. My talents are in music and in math, so I an a "code-breaker". Finding logical patterns is of a huge help while absorbing new information for me, and I have met many people who learn as I do. I am by no means unique. Let me also make the point for the first time for those of you who do not know me that I started from scratch, alone, at about age 35. No friends, no family to help me. No German people in my area. I've been told that it is at least rather rare to learn a language such as German alone, just through reading.

I assure you I think of NOTHING about any of these charts when I read except on a very rare occasion when I stumble in a sentence and need to figure out the case of a noun of pronoun in order for the sentence to make sense. Today this is very, very rare. In the beginning, it was a necessity.

I presented my point of view and my own way of rearranging things not to change the way German is taught but to make some complicated things less complicated for those whose minds work as mine does. I wanted to make that clear.

Under no circumstance would I ever suggest to Germans how to teach Germans, but I most definitely would and have suggested to Germans how to help Americans and other English speakers understand thorny problems and how to explain them in a more "user-friendly" manner. And I don't consider that dumbing down anything, not if it accelerates progress and leads to more fluency sooner.

Is there no one who understand my point of vew at all? Does my logic seem so weird to you that you see no value in it? Because it appears so, and this I do not understand. 

Gaer


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## Whodunit

gaer said:
			
		

> Or as Who did it, though I'm not sure why he started with feminine nouns, and the plurals are missing:
> 
> Nom./Gen./Dat./Akk.
> die/der/der/die - feminine nouns
> der/des/dem/den - masculine nouns
> das/des/dem/das - neuter nouns
> (plurals???)


 
I wrote the four lines according to my example sentence, where I didn't use any plural and the sentence started with a feminine article.


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## gaer

Whodunit said:
			
		

> I wrote the four lines according to my example sentence, where I didn't use any plural and the sentence started with a feminine article.


Okay. Then here it all is again, but you left out the genitive part in English:


			
				Who said:
			
		

> Der Frau, die dem Mann einst das Haus des Königs gezeigt hat, will der Mann später die Ehe versprechen.
> 
> Nom./Gen./Dat./Akk.
> die/der/der/die - feminine nouns
> der/des/dem/den - masculine nouns
> das/des/dem/das - neuter nouns
> 
> literally:
> To the woman, who to the man once the house *des Königs* showed, wants the man later the marriage to promise.
> 
> so that you can understand it:
> The man wants to promise to marry the woman who once showed the house *of the king* to the man.


I'm not quite sure what "des königs" means in your sentence. The king's house?

Gaer


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## Whodunit

gaer said:
			
		

> Okay. Then here it all is again, but you left out the genitive part in English:


 
Ok, right. It should be "the king's house". 



> I'm not quite sure what "des königs" means in your sentence. The king's house?


 
Yes, it does. As I said, the sentence does not have to make much sense. It's just an example of how different the *same* articles can be used.


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## Kajjo

gaer said:
			
		

> I'm not quite sure what "des königs" means in your sentence. The king's house?



Yes, "the king's house" or "the house of the king".

Kajjo


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## gaer

Okay, "the king's house". 

You have to admit it is a strange sentence. It makes grammatical sense. And of course it does not have to be logical in order to make a grammatical point. 

G


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