German Adjective Endings Depend on What the Article Shows

When does an adjective take an ending?

Only when it comes before the noun. When sein, werden or heißen links it back to the subject, and no noun follows, it takes no ending: Das Haus ist alt. FSI's 1961 German course says so in capital letters: adjectives like alt here never have endings, and neither do adjectives used as adverbs. If a noun follows, the ending comes back, even after ist: Es ist eine kleine Stadt. Adjectives before a noun do, except a few such as lila, covered further down.

In the last one, kleine comes before Blume and has an ending. The word weiß comes after ist and has none. Comparisons such as "older" have their own forms. This page leaves them for later.

To pick an ending, you need the noun's gender and its case. If those are shaky, start with der, die and das and German cases.

What ending comes after der, die and das?

Only two: -e or -en. Grimm says the article already shows the gender, case and number here, so the adjective doesn't need to. The same endings follow the other der-words Grimm lists: dieser, jeder, jener, mancher, solcher, welcher, alle.

Read Grimm's table this way. Five spots take -e: the nominative of all three genders, plus the accusative feminine and neuter. Everything else takes -en, including the masculine accusative and every plural.

Look at den neuen. Outside the dative and genitive, the masculine accusative is the one singular spot that takes -en.

What changes after ein, kein and mein?

Three cells, and only three. Grimm groups ein and kein with the possessives mein, dein, sein, ihr, unser, euer. These words take their own endings too, and this page only covers the adjective's, so look up a possessive's form, such as for euer, before you say it. Put its ein table next to its der table, and they differ where ein has no ending of its own.

In those three cells, the adjective picks up the letter that der or das would have shown: ein alter Mann, ein neues Auto. Everywhere else, use -e or -en just as after der.

The first one follows bist, yet it's nominative. That's because sein keeps the noun after it in the nominative (German cases has that rule). Don't stretch the shortcut to the dative. There, einem and einer already show the case, and the adjective takes -en.

What if there's no article at all?

Then the adjective carries the ending the article would have had. FSI says that with no article, the endings in the nominative, accusative and dative match the endings of the der-words. So der gives guter, den gives heißen, and dem gives kaltem.

The match breaks in the genitive. Grimm's table gives -en for masculine and neuter there, as in barmherzigen Jägers, not -es. FSI says genitives without an article are rare, so the other three cases matter more for speaking.

Grimm also says the same endings follow viele, einige, wenige and numbers. FSI adds that several adjectives all take the same ending. You can hear both in one corpus sentence: Eva hat Adam zwei schöne rote Äpfel gegeben. (Eve gave Adam two beautiful red apples.) With an article in front, a number doesn't change anything, and the article decides as usual. Two adjectives after an article share one ending too: Ich habe einen neuen roten Wagen. (I have a new red car.)

The same endings turn up where you might not expect an adjective. FSI notes that adjectives are sometimes used as nouns, and then they keep the same endings. Its example is the word for an acquaintance: ein alter Bekannter for a man, eine alte Bekannte for a woman, and der Bekannte after der. When a noun's ending seems to shift around, check whether it behaves like an adjective, because the tables above will tell you which ending it needs.

Which adjectives break the pattern?

A few change their own shape before the ending goes on.

Grimm's rule says adjectives ending in -el, -en or -er drop the e before the ending, and its example is dunkel. Wiktionary's tables agree for teuer, but offen and sauber keep their e. So drop the e on -el adjectives, and look up each -er or -en adjective before you say it with an ending.

Hoch stays hoch after sein: Die Mieten sind hier hoch. (Corpus translation: Rent is expensive here. Here hoch means high.) Before a noun, FSI says it becomes hoh-. Grimm says the colors lila, rosa and beige, and also prima and super, take no ending. For lila, Wiktionary also records forms with an ending, such as lilane, so you may hear both.

How do you pick the ending while you're talking?

Run four steps, in this order. The order is this site's House routine, and it only works once you know the noun's gender and case.

Step 4 has one gap: the masculine and neuter genitive take -en, not the -es of des. If you can't tell the case, stop. Work that out first with the case questions.

How do you drill this out loud?

The drill runs in Spoken Minutes: the timer moves only while you're talking. The steps and minutes are a House routine, untested with learners.

On day 1 there's nothing to say back yet, so those minutes go to the sentences.

1. Take three sentences, one from each table: Das neue Auto gehört ihr. Tom hat ein neues Auto. Ich brauche kaltes Wasser.
2. Say each one. Then look away and say it again.
3. Swap the adjective and keep the ending: neue becomes alte, neues becomes altes, and kaltes becomes heißes. Say each new sentence out loud. Use simple adjectives such as alt, neu, klein, gut, kalt, heiß, and skip the ones in the table under "Which adjectives break the pattern?"
4. On the 20-minute plan, swap the noun in the first two sentences for another thing of the same gender, so the ending stays: Auto for Buch, both das, in both sentences. Check the gender first, and keep to singular nouns.

Stay with the same three until the endings come out without much thought. Then pick three new sentences from the tables. Log the minutes in the Mile Log. For where this fits in your first weeks, see how to learn German.

Tomorrow, before you open anything, try a Cold Say-Back: say Tom hat ein neues Auto from memory, then say why the ending is -es.