I am learning German off rosetta stone, Whats the difference between 'der', 'die', and das?

Question

On level one 01-02 They use der, die, and das in the beginning of the prahse and I am haveing trouble reconizing the difference between them. For instance is it (Die vogel schwimmt, der vogel schwimmt, or das vogel schwimmt?) As an example.

Answer 1

"Der" is used for masculine nouns, "die" for feminine nouns, and "das" for neuter nouns. "Vogel" is a masculine noun, so for your example, you'd say "der Vogel schwimmt".

A little caveat: one thing you will later discover is that German has four grammatical cases, of which you are already studying the nominative. Each case has different forms of the articles:

Nominative: der, die, das. Plural: die.
Dative (indirect object): dem, der, dem. Plural: den.
Accusative (direct object, or indicating motion toward an object): den, die, das. Plural: die.
Genitive (indicating possession): des, der, des. Plural: der.

Grammatical gender doesn't add anything to comprehension or linguistic subtlety in any way--it merely provides the learner with a set of mistakes to make. There are some grammar aids, such as Coles Notes' "German Grammar Simplified", which classify nouns into gender-specific groups. There are a few exceptions to the patterns, but you'll eventually get the hang of it with practice.

Answer 2

Hello, take this from a German:

der is the masculine article
die is the feminine article and
das is the neutral article (neither masuline nor feminin)

But don't expect any logic in it.
The simplest example is, of course:
the man = der Mann
the woman = die Frau
the child = das Kind

Germans see the child as neutrum, because it is not adult.
You do the same in English:
The man --> he
The woman --> she
the child --> it

What word is used with what article or better said, what noun is masculine, what is feminine and what is neutrum, is a fact you got to learn with the vocabs. There is no way around because the German grammar is also based on the gender of the nouns.

So you cannot just learn "table = Tisch", instead you got to learn " table = der Tisch"

And to answer your example question: it is "der Vogel".
Btw Nouns in German are written with a capitalized letter in the beginning.

In case you got more questions you may contact me.

Answer 3

There are three kinds of nouns in German. These nouns use different articles and adjectives. The distinction between these nouns is called "gender". The names that we usually use to describe the genders in German are "masculine", "feminine" and "neuter". The gender of a particular noun is just a property of that noun. It has nothing to do with the actual gender of the thing that you are talking about, unlike what the previous answerer suggests.

There aren't too many tricks in German for remembering the genders of nouns, so you can just memorize the gender whenever you learn a new noun. I'm learning German right now, and I plan to make a flashcard that has the noun on one side and the appropriate article on the other side. You could also use a color-code system using three different colors, a different color for each gender. That can help you to keep track of which gender goes with which noun.

Have a great time learning German! It's awesome!

(By the way, if you think learning three genders is hard, I think you should feel happy that you're not learning Swahili. It has 14 kinds of nouns!)

Answer 4

der- masculin
die- feminine
das- neutral
but you just have to study a lot, because it does not always make sense, why the article is what it is.
to your question. you say
der vogel schwimmt. but that means the bird swims. you might want to say, der vogel fliegt. because that means the bird flies.
good luck learning german.

Answer 5

English is a very simple language, because it does not distinguish by gender and all nouns have the same article: THE.
In German it is more complicated. There are four basic articles.
DER = masculine - e.g. der Mann (the man)
DIE = feminine - e.g. die Frau (the woman)
DAS = gender neutral - e.g. das Auto (the car)
DIE = plural for all genders - e.g. die Männer (the men).
To make it even more complicated, these articles change according to the "case". It's too much to explain here, but I'll give you one example:
Der Mann - 1st. case masculine
Des Mannes - 2nd. case masculine
Dem Mann(e) - 3rd. case masculine
Den Mann - 4th. case masculine.
The same will happen to the three other articles I mentioned above.
I hope you can follow it and - please - if you are interested in the German language, don't get overwhelmed by this.
We all, who are not native German speakers, had to learn and we all did.

Answer 6

I only studied German for 1 year about... 12 years ago (!), but I remember that rule easily because it's just like in French. As someone said, nouns are gendered. But there is no logic to it.

So, what you need to do when you learn a new noun, is learn it with the appropriate article! ALWAYS! That's what I used to do, and never had a problem with articles. Actually, that's the easy part in German!

Answer 7

I think that this is a problem for anyone who tries to learn a language with such a rich grammar.

We have the same articles in Greek:

O --> masculine
H --> feminine
To --> neutral

We don't have difficulty in understanding the german grammar because it's almost the same with the greek grammar.The only problem we have is to learn which nouns are masculine which are feminine and which neutral because it's different in our language. For example "der Tisch" for us is neutral "To trapezi"

Answer 8

German nouns are masculine, feminine, and neuter: der is masculine, die is feminine das is neuter
Each of these has four cases. nominative, genitive, dative, and accusative.
Der Junge= the boy
des Junges= the boy's ( belonging to the boy)
dem Jungen= to,from, for, etc, the boy
den Jungen=the boy, (direct object)

Plurals are easy. die, der, den, die are used for masc, fem ,and neut.

Vogel is masculine, so you would say Der Vogel fliegt.
(The bird flies. BTW, all nouns are capitalized in German.)

Don't get discouraged. It is complicated, but you will catch on.


Somebody please correct me if I made a mistake here.

Answer 9

Well, the three words are articles so means 'the' the differences consist in the gender of them...
if the word they refer to is male it's used 'der'
if is female, it's used 'die'
and if it doesn't have gender is 'das'

and for plurals doesn't matter the gender, it's always 'die'

for example
der mann -> the man
die frau -> the woman
das auto -> the car

die männer -> the men
die frauen -> the women
die autos -> the cars

I hope this helps you...

Answer 10

Der, Die und Das are the tree different versions of 'the'
Der is the male article
Die the female.
and das is the one for things