der / die / das — grammatical gender

Every German noun has a grammatical gender. Always learn it together with its article: der, die or das.

A noun (Nomen) names a person, thing or concept. German nouns start with a capital letter: Tisch. An article (Artikel) comes before the noun: der Tisch. Gender belongs to the German noun; it does not mean that an object is biologically male or female.

der is used with masculine nouns, die with feminine nouns and das with neuter nouns.

Grammatical gender does not always match natural gender and often cannot be guessed reliably. Learn der Tisch, die Lampe and das Kind as complete units.

These examples use the nominative (Nominativ): we name the person or thing the sentence says something about. Here the plural article is die for all genders. In other cases the article can change.

Der Kaffee ist heiß.

Die Wohnung ist klein.

Das Kind spielt.

Die Türen sind offen.