This very simple trick helps my students
to learn German articles really easily

It really can become a piece of cake, although Mark Twain was unfortunately right as he wrote:

"Every noun has a gender, and there is no sense or system in the distribution; so the gender of each must be learned separately and by heart. There is no other way. To do this one has to have a memory like a memorandum-book." Aus: Mark Twain: The Awful German Language

Now, apparently he has managed to achieve it in some way, finally he did speak and write an excellent German.
But let's for one more time be alert of what Mark Twain exactly says:

1. The attribution of the articles doesn't make any sense - neither is there a system! Unfortunately this is true.
2. To learn the German articles, you need a super-memory ("like a memorandom-book"). This is true as well! And here you learn that you already have this super-memory; you only lack the right technique!

Many of you will now probably say: "Wait a moment, this isn't right! There is definitely a system!" Of course, you're right, at least there is a "little system", namely the so called gender specific endings. For not complicating it too much, we call them simply the "special endings", which indicate the right article.

 

A few examples

The ending -ung is always feminine, thus "die".
The ending -or is alway masculine, thus "der".
The ending -chen is always neuter, thus "das".

There are a few of these endings, although many of them have exceptions as well, and so there is an ongoing argument between linguists, which ones are special endings and which ones are not.

We don't want to get involved in this argument, we concentrate on a few endings, which really (almost) always indicate the correct article.

Many students of German have already come across "learning tips" for German articles such as this one, in their textbook:

But honestly: Who is actually able to memorize these endings?

Here is my hint for you: Use Quasi-Words!

What are Quasi-Words?

"Quasi" is Latin, and means in English "how". And that here is the Trick:

We arrange the syllables in a way, that we can pronounce them as a word. And for this we invent a short story together with a nice image.

And here is how it works:

Do you notice, that the "Bazillus" has a few prickles, like a hedgehog (German "der Igel")? Remember this for later. It will help you to remember the first syllable: Ig-ling ... This way it's easier to distinguish this Quasi-word from the other ones.

 

Imagine how cheerful (heiter) the woman is while working. That reminds you of the first syllable: Heit-ung-keit ...

 

This little being frolics (tummelt) always in your vicinity, to help you. This way you remember easily the first syllable: Tum-chen ...

 

But what if there are no "special" endings?

And let's be honest - most of the time there are none ...

That's too bad! With these nouns it's impossible to detect the correct article by their ending. And let's remember Mark Twain: "So one must learn the gender together with the noun, there is no other way."

Aber:

• WHY is this actually so difficult?
• HOW can you learn these articles IN A MUCH EASIER WAY?

In my eBook-package you´ll find the answers to these questions and a bunch of more really smart tricks which help you significantly with your learning German.

 

In this POWER-Learning-Kit for German grammar, you not only find everything about the learning of the articles, but also mnemotechnical learning aids for many, many other themes of the German grammar. More ...

More help to learn German articles from Akkiz

Akkiz Coskun, teacher of German from Ediene Koleji in Turkey, has provided an outstanding method for the learning of the articles through the theme of body parts. She uses for each article a symbol, and visualizes hereby the corresponding body parts:

The monkey (der Affe) is a symbol for the article der.
The baby (das Baby) is a symbol for the article das.
The singer Beyonce is  a symbol for the article die.

And here is how Akkiz' students learn the body parts:

 

For the theme of clothing, Akkiz has developed a wonderful action-based method. The children put on the clothes, and wear the mask (of the baby or the monkey) which corresponds to the article!

With this lively method, the students find it obviously a lot easier to memorize the articles! Have a look for yourself:

 

Still more help with learning German articles from Antonio

Antonio Libertino is totally excited about the "POWER-Learning-Kit" to learn German. A short time after he downloaded it, he contacted me and showed me how one can learn German in a creative way with this materials. In this short video,you'll see a superb example of learning German in a creative way.

Antonio simply wrote: "Hello Peter, a bit of work, done with your materials..." and sent me these outstanding tables for the learning of the German articles in all cases.

 

If you want to learn Italian, besides of German, have  a look at the sympathetic website of Antonio; I can only strongly recommend this teacher. www.italianoinitalia.com

And in case you´d like to feal the power of mnemonics at work, I strongly recomment this totally FREE 5-Days-Video-Course.

 

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