German Adjectives – Never fail again!

On this page, you will learn the most important German adjectives, including:

• Where to place them in a sentence
• When and how to decline them

Be sure to also check out the following pages to really master adjectives:

🔗 Superlatives and Adjective Comparison
🔗 Adjective Comparatives
🔗 Opposites

Adjectives and their sentence order

Do you have a cup of coffee in front of you?

Not yet?
Well, go and get one!

This lesson is a little longer and could be a little confusing if you do it for the first time. Nevertheless, I recommend reading all of it from top to bottom very carefully.

Take your time!

You don’t need to understand all of the rules instantly but you need to be aware that the word endings of adjectives can change.

OK – Let’s start – What are adjectives?

Adjectives are used to describe or characterize things or people. They are necessary to make the meanings of sentences more exact or clearer.

Here are some examples of German adjectives:

Colors:
rot (red), blau (blue), gelb (yellow), orange (orange), grün (green) …

Adjectives to describe time:
früh (early), spät (late), schnell (fast), langsam (slow) …

Adjectives to describe an emotion or feeling:
hungrig (hungry), fröhlich (cheerful), glücklich (happy), nervös (nervous) …

Adjectives to describe size:
klein (little), lang (long), dünn (thin), winzig (tiny) …

Adjectives to describe taste:
süß (sweet), salzig (salty), bitter (bitter), lecker (tasty) …

Adjectives to describe touch:
kalt (cold), warm (warm), nass (wet), weich (soft) …

Adjectives to describe sound:
laut (loud), leise (quiet), still (silent), schrill (shrill) …

Adjectives to describe shape:
rund (round), flach (flat), gebogen (curved), hohl (hollow) …

and many many more …

Do I have to decline German adjectives?

Well, yes and no.

Let me explain this.

Have you ever wondered why German adjectives often change their word ending? For example the word: blau (which means: blue).

Sometimes we just write: blau but other times we write: blaue, blauen, blaues, blauer – What the heck is this?

Even I think this is absurd, and I’m a native German speaker.

German adjectives can come …

a) after the noun or
b) before the noun.

This is very important to know because the adjectives are generally declined/inflected when they come before a noun and they are not when they come after the noun.

By the way, do you know what a noun is?

Any word in front of which you can place one of the articles: der, die or das (or the English article „the“) is a noun.

For example:

der Himmel (the sky)
die Sonne (the sun)
das Auto (the car)

German adjectives that come after the noun are not declined/inflected and often separated from the noun by a form of sein (to be) like: ist (is) if the noun is in a singular form or sind (are) if the noun is in the plural form.

Do you remember basic lesson on the Word „is“ in German?

In that lesson you practiced with sentences that follow this structure with the word ist.

As you can see in the sample sentences, the adjectives come after the nouns and are separated from the nouns by the German word “ist” (is).

Der Himmel ist blau.
The sky is blue.

Die Sonne ist gelb.
The sun is yellow.

Der Nordpol ist kalt.
The North Pole is cold.

Die Hölle ist heiß.
Hell is hot.

As you can see, the adjectives blau, gelb, kalt, and heiß are not declined/inflected because they come after the nouns.

So remember, the easiest way to describe a noun with an adjective is to place the adjective after the noun. This way, you don’t have to worry about declension at all!

Let’s do some exercises:

I’ll provide part of a sentence, then ask you a question. You’ll answer by restructuring the sentence so that the adjective follows the noun.

Part of a sentence (Satzteil):
Der blaue Himmel
The blue sky

Frage:
Wie ist der Himmel?

Deine Antwort:
Der Himmel ist blau.

_ _ _

Let’s do some more:

Satzteil:
Die gelbe Sonne
The yellow sun

Wie ist die Sonne?
=> Die Sonne ist gelb.

_ _ _

Satzteil:
Der kalte Nordpol
The cold North Pole

Wie ist der Nordpol?
=> Der Nordpol ist kalt.

_ _ _

Satzteil:
Die heiße Hölle
The hot Hell

Wie ist die Hölle?
=> Die Hölle ist heiß.

_ _ _

Satzteil:
Das schnelle Rennauto
The fast racing car

Wie ist das Rennauto?
=> Das Rennauto ist schnell.

_ _ _

Satzteil:
Ein schnelles Rennauto
A fast racing car

Wie ist ein Rennauto?
=> Ein Rennauto ist schnell.

_ _ _

Satzteil:
Eine kleine Maus
A little mouse

Wie ist eine Maus – groß oder klein?
=> Eine Maus ist klein.

_ _ _

Satzteil:
Die kleinen Mäuse
The little mice

Wie sind die Mäuse?
=>Die Mäuse sind* klein.
*We use „sind“ because the noun „Mäuse“ is in the plural form.

Using a Pronoun Instead of a Noun

I’d like to take this opportunity to revisit a concept you’ve already learned in a previous lesson.

You know that instead of a noun, you can also use the personal pronouns er (he), sie (she), and es (it).

If you’re unsure what I’m referring to, feel free to review the lesson.

Using a Pronoun Instead of a Noun

I’d like to take this opportunity to revisit a concept you’ve already learned in a previous lesson. You know that instead of a noun, you can also use a pronoun such as: ich, du, er, sie, es, wir, ihr, and sie.

If you’re unsure what I’m referring to, feel free to review these lessons.

For example:

You can replace the noun Himmel with the pronoun er (he) because Himmel is a masculine noun (der Himmel).

You can replace the noun Sonne with the pronoun sie (she) because it is a feminine noun (die Sonne).

You can replace the noun Rennauto with the pronoun es (it) because it is a neuter noun (das Rennauto).

You can replace the noun Rennautos with the pronoun sie (they) because it is a plural noun (die* Rennautos).

* A plural noun has always the article die. It doesn’t matter if the gender is masculine, feminine or neuter.

OK let’s do these exercises:

I’m going to give you a sentence with a noun and then I will ask a question but instead of the noun I will use the correct pronoun.

Then you will answer the question using the same pronoun. This way you can practice pronouns and you will be remembered that the German adjective – when it comes after the noun/pronoun – is not declined/inflected.

Part of a sentence (Satzteil):

Der blaue Himmel
The blue sky

Frage: 

Wie ist er?

Deine Antwort: 

Er ist blau.

_ _ _

Satzteil: 

Die gelbe Sonne
The yellow sun

Wie ist sie?
=> Sie ist gelb.

_ _ _

Satzteil: 

Der kalte Nordpol
The cold North Pole

Wie ist er?
=> Er ist kalt.

_ _ _

Satzteil: 

Das schnelle Rennauto
The fast racing car

Wie ist es?
=> Es ist schnell.

_ _ _

Satzteil: 

Die kleinen Mäuse
The little mice

Wie sind sie (they)?
=> Sie sind* klein.

*We use „sind“ because the noun „Mäuse“ is in the plural form. 

So far we have replaced the nouns with the following pronouns:

er (he), sie (she), es (it) and sie (they) and that’s why we use ist and sind to separate the noun/pronoun from the adjective:

Er ist = he is

Sie ist = she is

Es ist = it is

Sie sind = they are

If you want to use the other pronouns (ich, du, wir, ihr) then you need to use the matching form of sein (to be)

Do you know how to conjugate the verb sein (to be)?

Here it comes: The verb: sein = to be (irregular verb).

Ich bin = I am 

Du bist = you are 

Er ist = he is 

Sie ist = she is 

Es ist = it is

Wir sind = we are 

Ihr seid = you (all) are 

Sie sind = they are

Examples with the remaining pronouns:

Ich bin glücklich (happy).

Du bist hungrig (hungry).

Wir sind laut (loud).

Ihr seid langsam (slow).

As you can see the pattern is still the same. When the adjective comes after the noun (in this case the pronoun) it is not declined/inflected and it is separated by a form of sein (to be).

Now comes the difficult part

Adjectives are generally declined/inflected when they come before a noun. The ending of the adjective depends on several things:

– gender of the noun (masculine, feminine, neuter)

– case (nominative, genitive, dative, accusative)

– definite article (der, die, das)

– or indefinite articles (ein, eine)

– plural or singular noun

Here are some examples with the adjective blau:

Der blaue Ball
(the blue ball; masculine gender, nominative, definite article, singular)

Die blauen Bälle
(the blue balls; masculine gender, nominative, definite article, plural)

Die blaue Jeans
(the blue jeans; feminine gender, nominative, definite article, singular)

Das blaue Monster
(the blue monster, nominative, definite article, neuter gender, singular)

Ein blauer Ball
(a blue ball, masculine gender, nominative, indefinite article, singular)

Blaue Bälle
(blue balls, masculine gender, nominative, no article, plural)

Eine blaue Jeans
(a blue jeans; feminine gender, nominative, indefinite article, singular)

Ein blaues Monster
(a blue monster; neuter gender, nominative, indefinite article, singular)

These are only a few possible combinations and as you can see, this is not easy and can get very tricky!!!

And in these examples I only use the nominative case. Just imagine I would throw in the other three cases as well.

For those who really love grammar and want to learn the grammar rules regarding the declined adjectives by heart (against my advice) can check out this Wiki page.

You Are Probably Thinking Right Now

“How will I ever get this into my head?”

And “how do other students learn this stuff?”

There are two ways!

1) Most students go to German classes or buy grammar books and try to hammer these rules into their heads. They memorize the rules by heart!

You can imagine that this takes time and effort, and it’s not the most enjoyable way to learn. Plus, there’s another problem: the rules are so abstract that they rarely enter your long-term memory!

To apply these rules when needed, you’ll have to repeat them over and over again. If you don’t, you’ll likely forget them sooner or later.

2) There’s another way, and my email subscribers who signed up for my email list know this.

If you use the storytelling method and practice with my German audio stories, you won’t need to worry about memorizing grammar rules. Step by step, you’ll develop a natural feel for the correct word endings.

The more you practice with my audio stories, the more familiar you’ll become with German structure, word order, and word endings.