Der Words and Ein Words

Nouns are generally preceded by determiners. Some determiners are the definite and indefinite articles such as der Mantel and eine Brücke. Another category is the interrogative words such as welche Schule or wie viele Leute. The largest categories are the der words and the ein words.

Der words

The der words function like the definite articles in that they identify the gender and number of nouns.

One of the der words is dieser (this). Let’s look at it in all the cases.

	masculine	feminine	neuter	plural
nominative	dieser Freund	diese Lampe	dieses Haus	diese Tische
accusative	diesen Freund	diese Lampe	dieses Haus	diese Tische
dative	diesem Freund	dieser Lampe	diesem Haus	diesen Tischen
genitive	dieses Freundes	dieser Lampe	dieses Hauses	dieser Tische

  Other der words decline in the same way. Take note that some of them modify only plural

nouns.

modify plural nouns                         modify plural or singular nouns

alle (all)                                                       jeder (each, every)

beide (both)                                               jener (that)

                                                                     welcher (which)

                                                                     mancher (some, many a)

A few other determiners are used only in the plural.

einige               some

mehrere          several

sämtliche        all

viele                 many

wenige             few

Solcher is a special case. It is used mostly in the plural and is declined like dieser.

Solche Bücher sind sehr interessant.             Such books (Books like that) are very

                                                                               interesting.

When used with a singular noun, solcher is preceded by ein and is declined like an adjective.

Ein solches Hemd würde ich nie tragen.      I’d never wear such a shirt (a shirt like that).

Solcher is also used in its undeclined form (solch) as a replacement for so. For example:

so eine Wohnung                    such an apartment

solch eine Wohnung               such an apartment

so ein Flugzeug                      such an airplane

solch ein Flugzeug                  such an airplane

Ein words

The ein words function like the indefinite articles and include the possessive adjectives as well as kein.

Let’s look at kein in all the cases.

	masculine	feminine	neuter	plural
nominative	kein Freund	keine Lampe	kein Haus	keine Tische
accusative	keinen Freund	keine Lampe	kein Haus	keine Tische
dative	keinem Freund	keiner Lampe	keinem Haus	keinen Tischen
genitive	keines Freundes	keiner Lampe	keines Hauses	keiner Tische

   The other ein words are declined in the same way, and all of them, except for ein itself, can be used with either singular or plural nouns.

mein                  my

dein                   your (singular, informal)

sein                    his, its

ihr                      her

unser                 our

euer                   your (plural, informal)

Ihr                     your (singular or plural formal)

ihr                     their

  Some masculine nouns require an -n or -en ending when declined. This occurs with both der words and ein words. Some high-frequency nouns that do this are der Herr, der Junge, der Mensch, and der Tourist (gentleman, boy, human, tourist). For example:

nominative	der Herr	der Mensch
accusative	den Herrn	den Menschen
dative	dem Herrn	dem Menschen
genitive	des Herrn	des Menschen