Die Adjektivdeklination

A German adjective sitting before a noun takes an ending. The ending depends on three things about the noun (case, gender, number) and one thing about what stands in front of it (the article, or no article). This is the most-feared piece of German grammar. It is also the most mechanical, once the underlying logic is visible. The system is not three hundred rules; it is one rule expressed through three small tables.

This entry covers the attributive adjective only, the kind that sits between an article and a noun. Ein guter Mann. Die alte Frau. Mit kaltem Wasser. The other position, the predicative adjective after sein, werden, or bleiben, takes no ending at all. Das Auto ist neu. Der Mann wird alt. Die Suppe bleibt kalt. That is the whole rule for predicative adjectives. The rest of this page is about the attributive ones.

The underlying logic

The German noun phrase needs to communicate case and gender exactly once. If the article shows the case clearly, the adjective stays out of the way. If the article does not show the case (because the indefinite ein has no ending in three slots, or because there is no article at all), the adjective steps in and carries the case ending the article would have had.

In practical terms:

• After a fully marked article (der, dem, des, die, das), the adjective relaxes into -e or -en. This is the weak declension.
• After an ein-style article that is partly unmarked, the adjective takes the strong ending where the article is silent and the weak ending elsewhere. This is the mixed declension.
• With no article at all, the adjective carries every case ending alone. This is the strong declension.

Memorise this principle and the three tables below stop feeling random. They are the same case markers (der, die, das, den, dem, des) redistributed across two slots.

Strong declension (no article)

Used when there is no article in front of the adjective, or when the determiner does not inflect (etwas, viel, wenig, manch, solch without ending, welch, plain numbers like zwei).

Compare to the der-table for the cases. The adjective endings are the article endings, with two small twists: genitive masculine and neuter use -en instead of -es, because the noun itself takes the -s (guten Weines, not gutes Weines).

Ich trinke kaltes Wasser. I drink cold water.

Mit kaltem Wasser kann man kein Brot backen. With cold water you can’t bake bread.

Guter Wein ist nicht billig. Good wine is not cheap.

Weak declension (after der/die/das and friends)

Used after the definite article (der, die, das), and after dieser, jener, jeder, welcher, mancher, solcher, alle, beide. These determiners all carry a full case ending, so the adjective drops to a near-silent -e or -en.

The pattern is brutally simple. Five slots take -e: nominative singular in all three genders, plus accusative feminine and accusative neuter. Everything else takes -en. That’s it for weak.

Der alte Mann liest die neue Zeitung. The old man is reading the new newspaper.

Ich helfe dem alten Mann. I am helping the old man.

Wir lieben die guten alten Lieder. We love the good old songs. (two adjectives, both weak after the plural article)

Mixed declension (after ein/eine/kein and possessives)

Used after the indefinite article ein/eine, the negative kein, and all possessives (mein, dein, sein, ihr, unser, euer, Ihr). These determiners are missing endings in three slots: nominative masculine (ein, no ending), nominative neuter (ein, no ending), and accusative neuter (ein, no ending). In those three slots the adjective takes the strong ending. Elsewhere it falls back to the weak -en.

The three strong slots are the three positions where ein is bare. Ein guter Mann (the -er shows masculine nominative because ein alone does not). Ein gutes Kind (the -es shows neuter; ein is silent there). Ein gutes Kind again in accusative (still neuter, still silent ein). Every other slot in the mixed table is -en.

Mein neuer Wagen ist rot. My new car is red. (mixed, nominative masculine, -er because mein is bare here)

Sie sucht ein billiges Hotel. She is looking for a cheap hotel. (mixed, accusative neuter, -es because ein is bare)

Ich gebe meinem alten Freund ein gutes Buch. I am giving my old friend a good book. (mixed twice: meinem alten takes weak -en, ein gutes takes strong -es)

Spelling notes

A small group of adjectives shifts spelling when an ending is attached.

• hoch loses the -c- before any vowel ending: ein hohes Haus, der hohe Berg, mit hohem Druck. The base hoch survives only in the predicative form (Das Haus ist hoch).
• teuer loses the middle -e-: ein teures Auto, die teure Tasche, mit teuren Geschenken.
• dunkel loses the -e-: eine dunkle Nacht, im dunklen Wald, mit dunklen Augen.
• edel, eitel, übel, sauer behave the same way: eine edle Geste, saure Milch.

This is a euphony rule. German does not like -cher, -euer-, -eler- sequences inside a word, so the unstressed vowel drops out.

Substantivierte Adjektive (adjectives used as nouns)

A German adjective can be promoted to a full noun by capitalising it and treating it as if a noun were still hiding behind it. The gender comes from the implied noun (masculine for a male person, feminine for a female person, neuter for an abstract concept), and the adjective takes whatever ending it would have taken in front of Mann, Frau, or Ding.

der Deutsche, ein Deutscher, die Deutschen, des Deutschen the German (man), a German, the Germans, of the German

das Gute, etwas Schönes, nichts Neues the good, something beautiful, nothing new

The endings follow the three paradigms above without exception. Der Deutsche is weak (after der); ein Deutscher is mixed (after ein, masculine nominative, strong -er); etwas Schönes is strong neuter (after etwas, which doesn’t inflect, so the adjective carries the -es).

This construction is everywhere in German. Der Reisende (the traveller), die Beamte (the female official), das Wesentliche (the essential thing), ein Verwandter (a relative). Treat them as adjectives in disguise and the endings come out right.

How writers use the declension

Kafka’s prose is a continuous lesson in the mixed declension. Die Verwandlung opens with aus unruhigen Träumen (strong, no article), in seinem Bett (the possessive seinem alone), and zu einem ungeheueren Ungeziefer (mixed: after dative-marking einem, the adjective drops to -en, and Kafka picks the longer ungeheueren rather than the modern ungeheuren). One sentence, three article situations, three correct adjective endings. The rest of the novella maintains that precision.

Goethe in Werther writes letters drenched in possessive adjectives (meine, deine, seine) and definite articles, which means the adjective system is constantly in mixed and weak mode. The opening pages give you meiner Seele, einem traulichen Orte, der wunderbaren Heiterkeit, all collapsed into -en. Goethe’s sentences feel calm partly because the adjective endings are quiet. Compare to the strong declension of kaltes Wasser, which sticks out like punctuation.

The Grimm tales are the best A1 entry point. Es war einmal ein böser Wolf (mixed, masculine nominative, the adjective shows the -er the ein hides). Eine alte Großmutter (mixed feminine, weak in this slot because eine already shows feminine). Mit kalter Stimme (strong, no article after the dative preposition mit). The three paradigms recur on every page, in fairy-tale formulas that are easy to memorise without trying.

Goethe’s Faust compresses the substantivised adjective into rhetorical density: der ewig Weibliche, das Ewige, das Höchste. A B2 reader who can parse those phrases has internalised the substantivisation rule. The endings on those nouns are the same endings on any other adjective, only capitalised.

What you don’t need to do

You do not need to memorise the three tables before you start reading. The patterns burn in through repetition. After three hundred pages of German, der gute Mann and ein guter Mann will sound right and der guter Mann will sound wrong, even if you cannot articulate which paradigm you are in.

You do not need to declension-check every word in conversation. Native German speakers tolerate adjective-ending errors with a high degree of patience. Saying mit kalten Wasser instead of mit kaltem Wasser will not stop anyone understanding you. Mis-decline freely while you build vocabulary; correct it later through reading.

You do not need to handle every weird determiner at A2. Manch ein, solch ein, welch ein, all der, beide guten have edge-case behaviours that confuse even native speakers. Master der, ein, kein, the possessives, and the no-article case first. The exotic determiners come later.

You do not need to use the genitive-with-adjective in your own production. Wegen des schlechten Wetters is correct written German; in speech you will hear wegen dem schlechten Wetter. Recognise both, write the genitive, speak whichever feels natural.

Common confusions

• The predicative adjective takes no ending. Das Auto ist neu, not neues. The ending appears only when the adjective sits in front of the noun. Das neue Auto ist da.
• After ein in nominative masculine, the adjective shows the case. Ein guter Mann, not ein gut Mann and not ein guten Mann. The -er is doing the work the bare ein refuses to do.
• Plural after possessives takes -en, always. Meine guten Freunde, seine alten Bücher, ihre kleinen Kinder. There is no exception in the plural mixed declension.
• No-article plural takes -e in nominative and accusative. Gute Bücher sind teuer, not guten Bücher. Strong plural is the same shape as the die-article: die guten Bücher (weak after the article) versus gute Bücher (strong without).
• Two adjectives in a row take the same ending. Der alte schwarze Hund, ein guter alter Freund, mit kaltem klarem Wasser. The paradigm is set by the article, not by which adjective comes first.
• Hoch and teuer drop a letter when declined. Ein hohes Haus, not ein hoches Haus. Ein teures Buch, not ein teueres Buch.
• Dative plural always ends in -en on the adjective and -n on the noun. Mit guten Büchern, bei alten Freunden. The -n on the noun is the same plural-dative -n that the article system uses (den Männern, den Kindern).

Where you’ll meet it in the library

The three paradigms appear on every German page; the books that drill them most cleanly:

• Grimms Märchen (A1). Fairy-tale formulas (ein böser Wolf, die alte Großmutter, mit goldenem Haar) hit all three paradigms in the first paragraph of every story. The cleanest exposure for an A2 learner.
• Heidi (A1). Spyri’s farm vocabulary recycles a small set of adjectives (alt, jung, gut, klein, groß) across hundreds of weak and mixed contexts. Der alte Großvater, ein kleines Mädchen, die warme Milch recur on every page.
• Die Verwandlung (A2+). Kafka’s mixed-declension precision in the opening sentence is the most quoted example in German pedagogy.
• Der Process (A2+). The same Kafka register, longer sentences, more genitive constructions with adjectives (des unbekannten Beamten, einer höheren Behörde).
• Faust (B2). Goethe compresses substantivised adjectives into single lines: das ewig Weibliche zieht uns hinan. A B2 reader who can decline a substantivised adjective is reading Goethe correctly.
• Die Leiden des jungen Werthers (B2). The title is a textbook genitive-mixed adjective. The letters that follow are the most concentrated source of weak and mixed declensions in the catalog.