BACK TO GRAMMAR WORKSHEETS | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Handout: Der Genitiv | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The genitive case is used in German to express either:
The formation of the article in the genitive is fairly simple, as there are only two different endings (-es for masculine and neuter, -er for feminine and plural). However, the genitive case is unusual in German because it adds an ending not only to the articles, but to masculine and neuter nouns as well. This ending is -es for single-syllable masculine and neuter nouns. When the noun is more than one syllable long, the ending is usually just -s.
Although you aren’t required to learn them, the adjective endings for the genitive case are extremely easy: masculine and neuter are always -en, feminine and plural are either -en (if there’s an article) or -er (with no article):
In addition, you may see the question word wessen: this is merely the genitive form of wer, and means “whose”. It never has any other form or endings:
Word of warning: Your impulse may be to simply put an -s before a noun to indicate the possessive, as we do in English (my father’s car). However, saying “mein Vaters Wagen” is not only incorrect in German, it is incomprehensible and makes no sense at all. You must rephrase: “der Wagen meines Vaters”. If it helps to think of it as “the car of my father,” that’s fine, since the meaning is the same as English “my father’s car.” Remember that with personal names, you can simply add an -s to indicate the possessive. But when referring to a common noun rather than a proper name, the genitive formation must be used:
Alternate method: The genitive case has been disappearing in German for some time now. It’s not ‘dead’ yet, but you won’t often hear it in informal situations -- it’s mostly reserved for formal writing or elevated styles of speech. Instead of the genitive to indicate possession, you will often hear the dative used with the preposition ‘von’:
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
BACK TO GRAMMAR WORKSHEETS |