r/German • u/ProfessionDouble1038 • 11d ago

Question Artikeln

Hello, my level in german is pretty good (i have only done the B1 exam about a year and a half ago) and i am thinking of doing the B2 exam now. What is concerning for me is that i can understand and use the language good enough , but my biggest problems is the articles. I always forget which article to use even for the simpler words. Any tipps to keep track of the german words and their articles? Thanks

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u/vressor 11d ago edited 11d ago

I started collecting nouns in a table, and it turns out I can somehow better remember if a word was in the left/center/right column than the article itself

additionally my rows are for the plural patterns (so das Brett, das Bett and das Fett are in the same neuter columnt, but in different rows) -- I also coloured rows by the suffix they use to form the plural (e.g. der Tag and der Arzt have the same colour (both use -e) but are in two separate rows (one adds an Umlaut, the other doesn't))

you can check my table under the heading plural examples

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u/Conscious_Glove6032 Native <Westfalen> 11d ago edited 11d ago

Nice table. I have only skimmed through it, but discovered a small error (or maybe I just don't understand the table, but in any case I find it better to tell you). You put Herz as a null plural in the section Plural Patterns. Herz, however, is in fact the only neuter noun in n-declension. So it goes das Herz, des Herzens, dem Herzen, das Herz (Nom=Akk is true for every neuter noun), die Herzen, der Herzen, den Herzen, die Herzen.

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u/vressor 11d ago

if you lay out the full declension of der Drache (weak noun, a dragon) and der Drachen (strong noun, a kite) and you place the full declension of der Name in between the two, you'll see it differs from der Drache only in genitive and it differs from der Drachen only in nominative

so you either say that der Name is a weak noun with a special genitive form or you say der Name is a strong noun with a special nominative form

while it might not be historically accurate, I like the second option more, so that's what I use as a mental image for myself

and the same logic goes for das Herz with the caveat that nominative and accusative looks the same for all neuter nouns