# blaues, blaue



## kategogogo

Hi everybody, I saw these two sentence in my textbook:

_Er hat ein *blaues *Auge. _
_Sie hat *blaue *Augen. _

I don't understand why "blaues" changes to "blaue". According to Google, "blaue" is a noun. When the noun after "blaues" turns plural, "blaue" always changes to "blaue"?

Thank you all for reading this beginner leverl question.


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## JClaudeK

See declension rules here:

_Er hat ein *blaues *Auge. (mixed declension)
Sie hat *blaue *Augen. (strong declension)



kategogogo said:



			According to Google, "blaue" is a noun.
		
Click to expand...

_That's not true. Nouns take capital letters._ > _But "das Blaue" (noun) exists only in some set phrases.


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## Demiurg

kategogogo said:


> According to Google, "blaue" is a noun.



"blau" is an adjective like "blue" in English.

Sie hat blaue Augen. => She has blue eyes.
Er hat ein blaues Auge. => He has a black eye.


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## kategogogo

> Sie hat blaue Augen. => She has blue eyes.
> Er hat ein blaues Auge. => He has a black eye.



So "blaues Augen" is a set phrase meaning "black eye", "blaues" doesn't mean "blue", but "black" in this case. I didn't know that. Thank you Demiurg and JClaudeK. 

Could you bear with me and answer another entry level question. Do I need to change "blaue" according to the quantity of the noun it modifies? For example, "My cat has blue eyes" would be "Meine Katzen haben blaue Augen". "My cat has a blue eye and a green eye" would still be "Meine Katzen haben ein blaue Auge und....."?


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## Frieder

kategogogo said:


> "My cat has a blue eye and a green eye"


Meine Katze hat ein blaues und ein grünes Auge.


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## JClaudeK

Frieder said:


> Mein*e* Katz*e* ha*t* ein blaues und ein grünes Auge.


Unless all your cat*s *have a blue eye and a green eye.


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## Hutschi

kategogogo said:


> Hi everybody, I saw these two sentence in my textbook:
> 
> _Er hat ein *blaues *Auge. _
> _Sie hat *blaue *Augen. _
> 
> I don't understand why "blaues" changes to "blaue". ...


The main difference is singular vs. plural.


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## Hutschi

Demiurg said:


> "blau" is an adjective like "blue" in English.
> 
> ...
> Er hat ein blaues Auge. => He has a black eye.


This depends on context. Mostly, yes.


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## JClaudeK

Hutschi said:


> The main difference is singular vs. plural.


ein blaue*s* Auge - "s" is the laking "hard ending" for "da*s* Auge" 
blau*e* Augen - "e" is the laking "hard ending" for "di*e* Augen"

*"when there’s no hard ending in the noun or article, add it to the adjective"*


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## Hutschi

Exactly. 
So singular with definite article would be: "das blaue Auge".


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## kategogogo

The website is wonderful JClaudeK, I did research on it and finally wrapped my head around this, thank you all again for the helpful responses!


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## kategogogo

> blau*e* Augen - "e" is the laking "hard ending" for "di*e* Augen"
> *when there’s no hard ending in the noun or article, add it to the adjective.*



Sorry to be such a pain. I'm a little bit confused how to apply the rule that the sentence in bold talks about. Take "Augen" for example, it lacks hard ending because it has a soft ending "-en", its ariticle "di*e*" has a hard ending, so you add "*-e*" to the adjective "blau", and turns to "blau*e*"? Is my reasoning correct?


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## Hutschi

I give the full table for "blaues Auge".

das blaue Auge
des blauen Auges
dem blauen Auge
das blaue Auge

die blauen Augen
der blauen Augen
den blauen Augen
die blauen Augen

ein blaues Auge
eines blauen Auges
einem blauen Auge
das blaue Auge

viele blaue Augen
vieler blauer Augen
vielen blauen Augen
viele blauen Augen

For me it is difficult to see the rule with hard endings. It seems to fit in nominative. But there is a miss in genitive singular  and in plural.


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## JClaudeK

*When there is a hard ending in the noun or article, the adjective takes a “soft” ending as follows:
*
"*en*" everywhere except
Nominative Masculine Feminine & Neuter and Accusative  Feminine & Neuter In these cases, it's "*e*".

kategogogo
as I know that you speak well French, look at this:  La déclinaison faible de l'adjectif or this
where you can clearly see how it works: "en" everywhere and five exceptions with "e". These exceptions are not "logical", you just have to learn them.


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## berndf

JClaudeK said:


> When there _is _a hard ending in the *noun *or article, the adjective takes a “soft” ending as follows:


The ending of the noun has no influence on the adjective declension. I don't understand why you keep insisting on this.


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## JClaudeK

berndf said:


> The ending of the noun has no influence on the adjective declension. I don't understand why you keep insisting on this.


*I* don't insist, I just copied what I found on Adjective Declensions - German for English Speakers

And they are not wrong: The ending of the noun can have influence on the adjective declension:
kalte*s* Herz
vs
kalte*n* Herzen*s *

However, "hard endings" on nouns (having influence on the adjective declension) are very rare, that's true.



kategogogo said:


> Take "Augen" for example, it lacks hard ending because it has a soft ending "-en", its ariticle "di*e*" has a hard ending



The ending "-en" on "Augen" is just the plural ending, nothing to do with a 'hard ending'. When there is the article "di*e*" which has the 'hard ending', the adjevtive takes the 'soft ending' "en"
> di*e* blauen Augen


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## Hutschi

One of the problems: You should define _hard endings_ first.
The definition in the source does not fit my intuition. May be, it fits better for English speakers.
I never found that _e_ is a hard ending or an _r_,  but in their definition it is.
_(Or I understand it this way from their markings.)_


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## JClaudeK

Hutschi said:


> One of the problems: You should define _hard endings_ first.


I'm not familiar with Englisch "grammar terms", sorry. (Neither with German "grammar terms", by the way.)

"markings" (="marques du cas" in French) instead of "_hard endings"_ sounds better, indeed.


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## Hutschi

_PS:
All_ article endings of definite and indefinite articles are marked as hard endings there.
To me it does not make sense.
The results in their table are, however, correct.


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## JClaudeK

Hutschi said:


> _All_ article endings of definite and indefinite articles are marked as hard endings there.


Edit: That's not true (see #23).
There are just  3  indefinite articles ("*ein*"  Masculine & Neuter Nominative and Neuter Accusative) which have no "markings", all the other do.
That's why one calls it "Mixed declension".



> Mixed declension is used when there is a preceding indefinite article (e.g. _ein-_, _kein-_), or possessive determiner (_mein-_, _dein-_, _ihr-_, etc.).  Mixed inflection is the same as weak inflection, except for the masculine nominative, neuter nominative and accusative, that are the same as strong inflection.


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## berndf

JClaudeK said:


> I'm not familiar with Englisch "grammar terms", sorry. (Neither with German "grammar terms", by the way.)


"Hard" and "soft" endings aren't German "grammar terms" at all. The terms occur in the grammar of some Slavic languages but not German. In German, there are "strong" and "weak" declensions. The web site you quoted obviously tries to introduce a general heuristic that attempts to explain the strong, weak and mixed declension patterns in one go. I don't find it entirely convincing, though.


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## kategogogo

> _All_ article endings of definite and indefinite articles are marked as hard endings there.
> To me it does not make sense. The results in their table are, however, correct.


So I'm not the only one having a hard time. Relieved. Big thanks for your "blaues Auge" list, Hutschi. 



> The ending "-en" on "Augen" is just the plural ending, nothing to do with a 'hard ending'. When there is the article "di*e*" which has the 'hard ending', the adjevtive takes the 'soft ending' "en"> di*e* blauen Augen



OK.. got it. Thank you JClaudeK!



> "Hard" and "soft" endings aren't German "grammar terms" at all. The terms occur in the grammar of some Slavic languages but not German


Yes, that's what I found as well. I didn't understand them so I just googled "hard ending" and "soft ending". They are metioned only in Russian learning materials.

I guess it might be better for me to drop the "hard" and "soft" concepts for the time being. Things will work themselves out as I move on and get more famalir with the language. But the rest of the website JClaudeK gave is very systematic, I've already started to read it section by section.


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## JClaudeK

Hutschi said:


> _All_ article endings of definite and indefinite articles are marked as hard endings there.


That's not true:


> (Note after "Declination Type1"):
> For the indefinite and possessive articles, the adjective endings are the same [as for those with a definite article] *except for the three places where the article has no hard (=strong) ending and the adjective has to take it on.*


= "Mixed declension" (#20)

_I'm not familiar with Englisch "grammar terms", sorry. (Neither with German "grammar terms", by the way.)_
I'm only used to explain German grammar in French.


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## Demiurg

JClaudeK said:


> And they are not wrong: The ending of the noun can have influence on the adjective declension:
> kalte*s* Herz
> vs
> kalte*n* Herzen*s *



That's nonsense.  The adjective declension only depends on the gender of the noun, not on its ending.  Genitive singular is always _kalt*en* XXX_ for all neuter nouns.


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## JClaudeK

Demiurg said:


> That's nonsense.  The adjective declension only depends on the gender of the noun, not on its ending. Genitive singular is always _kalt*en* XXX_ for all neuter nouns.



Edit: Du darfst nicht Ursache und Wirkung verwechseln! You must respect causal connection!
*Why* is he adjective declension  of Genitive singular_ "-*en* XXX_" for all neuter nouns?

*Because* all neuter (and most masculine) nouns have *gentive endings* *on the noun*. So the adjective always takes "weak" declination (with or without the article).

m.: kalten Kaffee*s */ süßen Honig*s* / ....
n.: kalten Bier*s */ kalten Wasser*s */ frischen Brot(e)*s */ ...
but
f.: kalte*r* Milch


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## Hutschi

JClaudeK said:


> That's not true:
> ...



Adjective Declensions - German for English Speakers


I looked again. I did not find any article in the tables not marked.

All endings of articles are marked in yellow color indicating _hard_ ending.

In case I missed something, which article is not marked with a yellow ending, and in which table?

///

I just see. They call Possesivpronomen "possessive articles".


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## Hutschi

I do not understand the concept of hard endings anymore after looking and comparing.
Why has _der_ a hard ending but not _mein? _ In both endings it is a fixed declination / "hard wired".
In the beginning I thought they mean the kind of letter, later I thought they mean the declension ending, but nothing of it can be true.
It seems to be an occassional definition. It is missing symmetry and seems to be an ad hoc definition just for the given case.


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## JClaudeK

Hutschi said:


> I do not understand the concept of hard endings


"hard endings" is supposed to mean (I think) "endings which carry/ indicate the gender and the case", knowing that the case (and even the gender) is not easily  recognisable:
e.g.: "de*r*" can be Nominative masculine and Dative or Genitive feminine and Genitive plural !)
"de*m*" can be Dative masculine and Dative neuter
....

Declination: That's what makes German (seem) so difficult to learners.


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