Talk:German articles

The traditional order seems to be der/die/das as far as I recall, and the charts on this page do them in the order der/das/die. For ease of memorization it helps to keep the order the same. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.228.119.57 (talk) 05:28, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

Quite right. This is something I mean to deal with when I have a bit more time. Anyone else who knows tables go ahead. Blythwood (talk) 23:34, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

By prepositions, do you mean the articles? I'm not aware of any predefined order, where is that taught? I decided to order them as der - das - die (f) - die (pl) because this way you can see that the pairs marculine/neuter and feminine/plural tend to be similar, as can be seen in this pic which I think is very helpful (at least it was for me).

--Fauban 09:24, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

FWIW, I spent some of my childhood in Germany and the first two lines of the theme tune for SesamStraße (Sesame Street) go "Der, Die, Das; Wer? Wie? Was?", which is the three singular definite articles in the nominative case, followed by the questions "Who?" "How?" and "What?" It's the order in which German children are taught the genders and pretty much any text book or language course you could look at will also list them as "Der, Die, Das".

You can read the lyrics to the theme tune here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sesamstra%C3%9Fe

"Der, die, das (wer, wie, was – wieso, weshalb, warum – wer nicht fragt, bleibt dumm!)"

Traditional ordering is "masculine - feminine - neuter - plural" and "nominative - genitive - dative - accusative" (cf. German "1. Fall - 2. Fall - 3. Fall - 4. Fall"). -91.63.241.84 (talk) 10:49, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

 Done: Resolved in November 2022 – DBaK (talk) 15:39, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

• 
  Black-and-white SVG
• 
  Colored PNG
• 
  Indefinite article PNG

@Parcly Taxel: You disagree with the IP 79.190.250.106 and with Fauban on which image of the definite articles should be used, and prefer the black-and-white SVG over the colored PNG. Personally, I think that the colored one is better, because it matches the indefinite article PNG. No more edit war; let's have a discussion. Do you prefer the black-and-white one for any reason besides it being an SVG? If an SVG is needed, then the obvious solution is to make SVGs out of the PNGs. — Eru·tuon 21:33, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

No Money No Time – I am going to make an indefinite version of the SVG I just made. And then we can colour the SVGs to match the current mood. Parcly Taxel 23:42, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

 Done: Resolved in November 2022 as the graphic was omitted in the restructure. – DBaK (talk) 15:39, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

I was wondering where this graphic went! It was the only depiction that I've found that made sense of the chaos 😆 but I agree that it's not the "standard" order. I'm glad Wikipedia keeps all of this history around so I don't lose it. Niaxilin (talk) 17:18, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

I think this image (which uses the same order) is nicer: File:German_die_der_das_declensions.svg. --Zundark (talk) 20:18, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

I was never sure I liked it but to try not to be unfair, when changing the order of this article back to the correct standard, I did make a new version of it, which is at File:German articles der die das.png. I have made an SVG of it too but it won't upload at the moment. I will try again sometime. If you think it is any use for the article please feel free to open a fresh debate! Cheers DBaK (talk) 22:14, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

File:German die der das declensions.svg uses "der – das – die", which was found consensually to be unhelpful. File:German articles der die das.png is in the correct order and avoids a confusing layout, so it does no harm. But I don't see how it makes the matter any clearer than the plain table already does. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 23:49, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

For me, it's the colors that helped the most. Quickly seeing six different words instead of 16 helps me absorb the information faster. The SVG is better in this respect because it uses only six colors, while the PNG uses eight (?). The second, and lesser benefit was in the groupings. As a visual learner, I remember shapes and patterns easier than individual words. But I'd say that's secondary to the color coding. Niaxilin (talk) 12:19, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

Hi ... I have been trying to follow this but I am getting a little confused. I'd love to know:

1. Is something concrete being proposed here and if so what? We could discuss a proposal but I don't think that we have one.
2. Could people please use precise filenames for the graphics? Referring to the PNG or the SVG gets us nowhere as there are at least two of each being discussed and I don't know which one you mean. Use the filename, please, and it is clear.

Where I am coming from on this:

•  I agree with Michael Bednarek that the graphic adds relatively little. I am agnostic, tending somewhat towards negative, on its inclusion but it is not a hill on which I am prepared to die either way.
•  The incorrect word order der, das, die is a busted flush and, in the nicest possible way, I don't really want to talk about it. The only way forward for this article is der, die, das. I absolutely get why people could have liked the graphic but that only makes it an attractive and interesting thing that is wrong, not something that we can use.
•  The original (wrong!) graphic is at File:German definite article declension.png
•  As a courtesy, I made a new version with the correct word order and this is at File:German articles der die das.png. I didn't really intend to deploy but since my proposed changes to the article's word order made File:German definite article declension.png redundant I thought I should have it up my sleeve in case anyone thought it important.
•  In my new version File:German articles der die das.png I respected as closely as possible the original version while changing the word order. So it does have more colours, yes, because the original did. It uses differing colours for the different uses of der and den, but I know that some of the other versions just use the same colours and this is a learning-style thing on which I am not qualified to comment.
•  I am lousy at that sort of graphics editing (and indeed most other sorts) and it was a Royal Pain In The You-know-what for me to do it. However, if there is a consensus that we want a version of File:German articles der die das.png that uses consistent colours-per-word then I could probably make that. Or if you, dear reader, are good at graphics then please feel free to step in. I can assist with files which you probably do not need! But I don't intend to take any further action on this unless consensus here says that we need to.

I think that's me done with this for now. I will await with interest a response to my (1) above, preferably respecting (2), but I won't hold my breath and there is no urgency here ... it can just wait, or stay how it is, and no-one will suffer. Best to all, DBaK (talk) 12:39, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

I think User:Niaxilin may have a point about some advantages of a coloured graphic, and, as I wrote above, adding File:German articles der die das.png to the article does no harm and may address that point. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 12:52, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

Thanks very much @Michael Bednarek, and are you OK with the current colours at File:German articles der die das.png or do you think they should be made consistent across der and den, hence fewer colours? Cheers DBaK (talk) 14:27, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

Whatever. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 23:56, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

Here's an updated der-die-das PNG with six distinct colors. Thoughts? I've never uploaded a Commons image before. I hope I did so correctly. Niaxilin (talk) 09:07, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

I think it's very nice and if people are happy with a six-colour model I would cheerfully support its inclusion, though please note that this is not my field of expertise. It's very bright and clear and might help people see the similarities. I would have appreciated it when I was learning German. Well done and cheers DBaK (talk) 10:22, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

Quote:

Up until the 18th century, a genitive noun was often used instead of a possessive pronoun. This is occasionally found in very literary modern German.

"OLD": "Des Königs Krone" (The king's crown)

("MODERN": "Die Krone des Königs" - BUT: "Die Königskrone" (compound noun))

These pronouns are used if using the ordinary possessive pronoun is understood reflexively, or there are several possessors.

1. des is no pronoun, but the genitive of the definite article (which in pseudo-modern grammar can be called determiner).
2. As the example shows, the article des and genitive of the noun König (which is Königs) is not replaced by anything, but instead the word order is simply changed.

-91.63.241.84 (talk) 10:49, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

 Done: As of November 2022 this wording seems to be absent from the article – DBaK (talk) 15:39, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

"Like its English equivalent (though unlike Spanish), it has no direct form for a plural" - so why there are some forms specified in the table below for "Indefinite article"? 31.135.192.26 (talk) 13:31, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

I don't know how the rest of it read then, on 9 February 2020, but reading it now it appears that maybe this query is dealt with by the clarification that, whilst there indeed is no direct equivalent, other words do get used in this or a similar role, and they get inflected like in the table? I would happily cede this discussion to someone with greater expertise, though. DBaK (talk) 15:44, 17 November 2022 (UTC)