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Free practice · German articles

Der, die or das?

Pick the article. Each answer shows the meaning, the plural and an example sentence, with audio. No account needed.

About this practice

153 nouns from the first 5 levels of the course, in learning order. The noun lookup covers 10,563 nouns.

Question 1 of 100 right

Which article?

Zeit

time

Press 1, 2 or 3 to answer.

Some help

Endings that help you choose an article.

A German noun’s gender is partly predictable. True word-forming suffixes give the strongest clues; other endings are tendencies with exceptions. Read the full guide to German noun gender rules and exceptions.

der masculine

  • -er people and tools: der Lehrer, der Computer
  • -ling der Schmetterling
  • -ismus der Tourismus
  • often -ig, -ich der Honig, der Teppich
  • often -ant, -ent, -ist, -or der Student, der Motor
  • days, months, main season names der Montag, der Januar, der Winter
The agent or instrument suffix -er is a strong clue. Matching letters alone are not: das Fenster and die Butter end the same way.

die feminine

  • -ung die Zeitung
  • -heit, -keit die Freiheit, die Möglichkeit
  • -schaft die Freundschaft
  • -ion, -tät die Nation, die Universität
  • often -ik, -ie, -ei die Musik, die Familie, die Bäckerei
  • often -ur die Natur
  • -in for people: die Lehrerin
  • most nouns in -e die Straße, die Lampe
Ending patterns have exceptions: der Junge, der Name, das Ende, der Käse end in -e; das Knie and das Abitur also differ from the tendencies above.

das neuter

  • -chen, -lein das Mädchen, das Fräulein
  • often -ment das Instrument, das Dokument
  • often -um das Museum, das Zentrum
  • usually -tum das Eigentum
  • often -ma das Thema, das Klima
  • Ge- collectives das Gebäude, das Gemüse
  • infinitives used as nouns das Essen, das Leben
Watch for der Moment, der Irrtum, die Firma, die Geschichte and der Gedanke.

A compound noun takes the gender of its final noun: das Haus and die Tür make die Haustür. Many everyday nouns have no useful ending clue: der Tisch, die Tür, das Bett. Learn and practice each noun together with its article.

Look one up

Is it der, die or das?

Type a noun to check its article and plural, among the 10,563 nouns in the course.

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In the course, gender practice uses nouns you have learned and schedules them for review.

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The nouns, plurals, and sentences here come from the Wortplay course. Its vocabulary draws on the Ding dictionary and on frequency data from wordfreq; audio is generated German speech. About the sources.