Gender, plurals and case, All together

1) Gender, plurals and case, here’s how they all fit together:

Nouns in the dative plural ALWAYS end in -n, except those nouns which come from other languages. Most of their plural forms end in -s. For example:

2) in addition to der/die/das, they apply as above to the following definite articles:

• dieser / diese / dieses (“this/that, these/those”)

• solcher / solche / solches (“such”)

• welcher / welche / welches (“which”)

• jener / jene / jenes (“that, those”)

• mancher / manche / manches (“many a”)

3) “dies-” is less common than “this” in English;

if you’re helping someone pick out a dress, you’d say Ich mag dieses Kleid (“I like this one)

but “this beer [in my hand] is too warm” would often just be das Bier ist zu warm.

4) the indefinite articles (like a/an in English) and possessives (my, your, his, etc).

These words have the same hard endings as the definite articles above, except that they drop them in three places. 

Here’s how to say: “my dog/cat/bunny/birds”:

two indefinite articles:

• ein / eine / ein (“a/an ___”)

• kein / keine / kein (“no/not a ___“)

5) Changes to the definite and indefinite articles der, die or das and ein, eine or ein