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Recently I started learning German and I was wondering if there is an online tool where you can practice German grammatical gender, since it is something that you just have to remember.

For example, a random noun would be printed and you have to choose whether it is masculine, feminine or neuter. Or, random noun would be printed in English and you have to translate it but with definitive article included (man -> der Mann, woman -> die Frau, etc.)

I hope this is the right place to ask...

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  • Are you looking for a tool that just helps you practise the nominative singular, or also plural forms, examples with prepositions, etc? Because the mental gymnastics that go beyond the nominative singular are what you'll need to do all the time when you speak.
    – Tsundoku
    Jan 7, 2018 at 20:50
  • I want to be able to construct sentences correctly. One part of that is to know when to use definite/indefinite articles, which is partially based on gender. If the "tool" can provide exercises for plurals too, that would be great, but for now, singular nouns will be fine. Can you give me an example of "examples with prepositions", what do you mean by that?
    – David
    Jan 8, 2018 at 17:36
  • Generally I could create this myself, I found a list of words in English, their translation to German, with definite article and plural form. I'm just asking if something like that already exists to save some time.
    – David
    Jan 8, 2018 at 17:55
  • An example with prepositions would be "mit ... Messer". Sentences would be better, especially for prepositions where more than one case is possible. You can turn such sentences into cloze tests and add them to Anki or another SRS.
    – Tsundoku
    Jan 8, 2018 at 18:01
  • Knowing the gender of nouns in German is essential to choosing the correct form of the definite/indefinite article and the adjective ending. The correct form, in turn, depends on the function of the noun in the sentence or the preposition that precedes it. There are numerous exercises to practice this complex aspect of German grammar here: esl.fis.edu/learners/fis/german/indexK.htm
    – Shoe
    Jan 9, 2018 at 17:15

4 Answers 4

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I made the following quiz for my German beginners:

http://esl.fis.edu/learners/fis/german/quiz2/23-2.htm

You will find other beginners' quizzes here:

http://esl.fis.edu/learners/fis/german/indexQ.htm

Viel Spaß!

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  • How is the second link relevant to the question?
    – Tsundoku
    Jan 7, 2018 at 21:01
  • @Christophe Strobbe. The second link is relevant to the extent that a user asking about der-die-das would be interested in online resources that could help him or her learn and practice other aspects of German grammar.
    – Shoe
    Jan 8, 2018 at 7:47
  • This might be what I need
    – David
    Jan 8, 2018 at 17:50
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There are a few German websites that each provide a small set of exercises. For example:

On websites in English:

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  • I am looking for something that would include a little more nouns. Nouns should be picked randomly so I can practice lets say ~20 nouns per day. Thank you for the links, they are all going to my bookmarks :)
    – David
    Jan 8, 2018 at 17:48
  • @David Yes, I understand. This was just the best I could find.
    – Tsundoku
    Jan 8, 2018 at 18:02
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Try Tinycards by Duolingo.

If you want a much more (aside from just genders) try Duolingo itself.

Viel Glück!

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  • Yes, I found one der-die-das card, a lot of examples there. Thanks.
    – David
    Jan 8, 2018 at 18:00
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The "Microsoft Translator" app that's in Google (@ "translate.Google.com") is full of grammar helps form many languages. However, with the Google app you have to do the work -- thinking, typing, highlighting when necessary (almost all the time), and entering your 'exercises'.

Here's an example of what I mean: I entered two simple English words ("mouse" and then "house") to determine the German articles for each English word, singular and plural.

input 1: a mouse. the mouse. that mouse. some mice. those mice

output 1: eine Maus. Die Maus. diese Maus. einige Mäuse. diese Mäuse

input 2: a house. the house. that house. some houses. those houses

output 2: ein Haus. das Haus. dieses Haus. einige Häuser. diese Häuser.

One doesn't have to repeat the words as I have done in this example. By 'computer magic' you can type the root word and its article once, then highlight and overtype the article with other ones to get new outputs.

You'll note that the Google translator not only output the correct article for the nouns' gender, but also capitalized the nouns, as they should be in German.

This particular exercise is an interesting example of Google's grammar inclusions. To see what I mean, all you need to do is highlight "Maus" and/or "Haus" -- and see what you get. It's a very good learning exercise.

Those who publically disparage the Microsoft translator app in Google really don't know much at all about the app, and also not its impressive language translations, but its interpreting of the translated output. By this I mean that the output translation is not word-for-word, but is a rendering in colloquial English.

Lastly, a Google translator feature that I've found to be highly useful is its fast/slow two-speed pronunciation of input text. The 'fast' speed is normal speech, the 'slow' speed is slow enough to hear distinctly the pronunciations of words, phrases, sentences, etc. In other words, as you study the German articles you can hear them distinctly pronounced.

I know quite a lot (but not everything, of course) about the Microsoft translator app -- I have been using it's Google application every day for the past four months doing a tri-lingual translation (German, English, and Berlin dialect) of an old German joke book.

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