German A1 Complete Cheat Sheet (DRAFT) by talfyrnn

1. Male persons or animals, the seasons, months, and days are all masculine, as are nouns ending in -ant, -ast, -ich, -ig, -ismus, -ling, -or and -us.

3. Young persons or animals, metals, chemical elements, letters of the alphabet, hotels, restau­rants, cinemas, contin­ents, countries and provinces are all neuter, as are nouns that end in -chen, -icht, -il, -it, -lein, -ma, -ment, -tel, -tum, and -um. Nouns referring to things that end in -al, -an, -ar, -ät, -ent, -ett, -ier, -iv, -o and -on, as well as most words with the prefix ge- and most nouns ending in -nis and -sal are also neuter.*

All nouns (as well as pronouns and adject­ives) have a case depending on what function they serve in the sentence. These may seem strange, but remember that English uses cases also; however, we would say direct object instead of accusa­tive, or indirect object instead of dative. Although these cases may make learning new words difficult, they actually help with word order because the position of words in a sentence is not as fixed in German as it is in English. And the reason for that is because words can occur in these four cases:

Accusa­tive: direct objects - We see the mountain. / I bought a gift.

Genitive: indicates possession or relati­onship - The book of the girl. / The dog's tail.