Image by Rudy and Peter Skitterians from Pixabay
In this post we’ll learn some basic German vocabulary and grammar that you can use to describe things.
Welche Farbe hat es? What color is it?
Let’s start with colors: schwarz black; weiß white; rot red; blau blue; gelb yellow; grün green; braun brown; grau gray.
- Der Hund ist schwarz.
The dog is black. - Die Katze ist weiß.
The cat is white. - Unser Auto ist blau.
Our car is blue. - Die deutsche Flagge ist schwarz, rot, und gold.
The German flag is black, red, and gold.
Sehr gut!
Now let’s look at several other important basic adjectives: gut good; schlecht bad; groß big; klein small; schön beautiful; hässlich ugly; alt old; neu new; lang long; kurz short; hoch high; niedrig low; leer empty; voll full; breit wide; eng/schmal narrow; hart hard; weich soft; schwer/schwierig difficult; leicht/einfach easy.
- Dieses Restaurant ist gut / schlecht.
This restaurant is good/bad. - Es ist ein gutes Restaurant.
It’s a good restaurant. - Ich höre ein gutes/schlechtes Lied.
I’m listening to a good/bad song. - Der Film ist alt / neu.
The film is old/new. - Wir sehen einen alten / neuen Film.
We’re seeing an old/new film. - Die Stadt ist schön/groß.
The city is beautiful/big. - Die Straße ist breit/schmal.
The street is wide/narrow. - Das Bett ist hart/weich.
The bed is hard/soft. - Das Glas ist voll/leer.
The glass is full/empty.
Those Pesky Adjective Endings
GRAMMAR TIP! Did you notice that German adjectives sometimes take different endings? Compare:
- Der Film is gut.
The film is good. - Das ist ein guter Film.
That’s a good film. - Ich habe einen guten Film gesehen.
I saw a good film.
The easiest place to put a German adjective is after the verb sein, because its forms never change:
- Das Buch ist gut/schlecht.
The book is good/bad. - Der Film ist alt/neu.
The film is old/new.
If you use a German adjective right before a noun (as in a new film, the bad book, my beautiful city…) the adjective is going to take an ending, and that ending depends on a few things. We won’t get into all of it here, but in a quick nutshell:
- After singular der, die, and das: use the so-called “weak”ending -e: der gute Film (the good film); die schöne Stadt (the beautiful city), das schlechte Buch (the bad book). After plural die, the weak ending is –en: die guten Filme (the good films), die schönen Städte (the beautiful cities), die schlechten Bücher (the bad books).
- After ein(e), mein and other possessives, or kein(e), use the so-called “strong”endings –er for masculine, –e for feminine, and –es for neuter: ein guter Film (a good film), meine schöne Stadt (my beautiful), kein schlechtes Buch (no good book). In the plural, the strong ending is –en: meine schönen Städte (my beautiful cities), keine schlechten Bücher (no bad books), unsere neuen Filme (our new films).
- In other cases after einen, einem, einer, den, dem, der, or des, the ending is always –en: einen guten Film (a good film, accusative), den guten Film (the good film, accusative), in einer schönen Stadt (in a beautiful city, dative), in der schönen Stadt (in the beautiful city, dative), des schlechten Buches (of the bad book, genitive).
There’s a bit more to the story than that, but if you keep these three rules in mind, you’ll cover by far the greatest number of circumstances when you want to use a German adjective.
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