Grammatical Gender In German

All German nouns are included in one of three genders: masculine, feminine or neuter. While the gender often does not directly influence the plural forms of nouns, there are exceptions, particularly when it comes to people and professions (e.g. Ärzte/Ärztinnen).

In German, it is useful to memorize nouns with their accompanying definite article in order to remember their gender.While Donaldson (2007) says that it is imperative to do so, Durrell (2017) only mentions that is an ideal method. However, for about 80% of nouns, the grammatical gender can be deduced from their singular and plural forms and their meaning.

Noun forms

Derivational suffixes in particular, together with most noun endings, consistently relate with specific genders, and there are very few frequent exceptions to this (as reflected in the first column). Nevertheless, the details in the second column are not solid rules, and their irregularities should be noted.

Notes: exceptions and irregularities

Noun meanings

The gender of many nouns can be seen by their meaning. However, in almost all circumstances, the rules in the paragraph above override those given here.

Notes for the chart:

Special cases

The genders of a few nouns are not fixed, and may be linked to regional or register differences. There are a number of words with two meanings distinguished by gender.

Compounds and abbreviations

Compound words usually carry the gender of their last element. Moreover, the gender of abbreviations is decided by the gender of the base word, and shortened words take the gender of the full word.

English loanwords

Many loanwords from English adopt the gender of their native German equivalent; the gender of other loanwords may be deduced by the word's form or ending. For example, nouns from English -''ing'' forms are neuter when referring to actions, but masculine when not referring to actions e.g. ''der Looping'', 'loop' esp. in context of a rollercoaster. Another source of neuter loanwords are adverbials like ''das Off''.

Monosyllabic nouns from verbs

Monosyllabic nouns from verbs are often masculine, and the same goes for monosyllabic words for which there is no other indication, which are mainly masculine.

Varying gender

In many cases the gender can vary, either because of regional differences or because the noun's gender is not firmly established.

Professions

Most job titles have both a masculine and feminine form that reflects the gender of the professional, similar to the English distinction between "waiter" and "waitress". Feminine job titles are usually created by adding -''in'' to the grammatically masculine word in question. For example, the general grammatically masculine term for train driver is (singular or plural). This yields the feminine form (plural: ).

For job listings, if the generic masculine form is used, the Gesellschaft für deutsche Sprache recommends adding an explanatory note "(männlich/weiblich/divers)" or "(m/w/d)", indicating the role is open to persons of all genders.

In contrast, the German military does not have separate gendered ranks. Even though the grammatically female form of ''Arzt'' is ''Ärztin'', the correct form of address for a female medical officer is "''Frau Stabsarzt''" and not "''Frau Stabsärztin''".

See also

* German articles
* German cases
* German nouns

Notes

References

Sources

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Further reading

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External links

Identifying a German Word’s Gender
''For Dummies''
on the Internet Archive
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''University of Michigan College of LSA''

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Gender of Nouns
{{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210207141116/https://www.practicalgerman.tk/gender-of-nouns/ , date=2021-02-07 , ''Practical German''.
Grammatical gender
German grammar