German articles.

Anyone who is just starting to learn German, faces the challenge of articles.Russian Speaking difficult to understand this subject, because in our speech we do not use anything like the German articles.This article is available and just answer the most common questions among the newcomers on this topic.

German articles come in several forms: definite, indefinite and zero.Let us consider each of them in order.

definite article

them there are only four:

Der - for masculine nouns (the village);

Die - for feminine (di);

Das - to neuter (das);

Die - plural (di).

They are used in the following cases:

1. When we know what is at stake.If on this subject have said previously.For example: der Hund (determined dog, which has already been mentioned).
2. to mean something, the only one of its kind, unparalleled which does not exist in nature (die Erde - Earth).
3. to designate many geographical features: rivers, cities, mountains, seas, oceans, streets and so on (die Alpen - Alpes).
4. If before our nouns is ordinal number (der dritte Mann - the third person), or superlative adjective (der schnellste Mann - the fastest man).

indefinite article

Ein - masculine and neuter (Ain);

Eine - feminine (Ain).For

plural, in this case the article is not.

indefinite article in the German language is used in cases of:

1. When we talk about things unfamiliar to us (ein Hund - some kind of a dog, which we hear for the first time).
2. After the phrase «es gibt» (literally "guest"), for simplicity, we can draw an analogy with the English «there is» (Es gibt einen Weg - there is a road).
3. to designate the kind or class (Der Löwe ist ein Raubtier - the lion - a beast of prey).
4. With verbs Haben (to have) and Brauchen (need).For example: «Ich habe eine Arbeit» - I have a job.

zero article

Not all German articles actually is.There is such a thing as a zero article.In fact, it is the absence of the article at all.So, we did not write before a noun if:

1. It represents a profession or occupation (Sie ist Ärztin - it - doctor).
2. to many proper names (London ist die Hauptstadt von Großbritannien - London - the capital of the UK).
3. for the plural (Hier wohnen Menschen - people live there).
4. when referring to any chemical material (aus Gold - gold).

almost always gender of a noun in the Russian and the corresponding German articles differ from each other.For example, if the "girl" in our feminine in German - middle - «das Mädchen».That is a kind of "girl."There are a set of terminals, that can be used to facilitate certain kinds of nouns, but most of them only one way out - to remember.

Another difficulty - inducing German articles.As in Russian, we do not say, "I see a girl", also in German.Each article leans on cases.The task is facilitated by the fact that there are only four plagues: Nominativ (nominative), Genetiv (genitive), Dativ (dative) and Akkusativ (like the accusative).The decline should be easy to remember.For your convenience, we present the following table.

Regarding the indefinite articles, they are inclined in the same PRINCIPLES.For example, men in the article ein Akk will einen, it simply added -en.So it is with all the other articles.