Purpose

By the end of this lesson, you will be able to recognize N-declension nouns and correctly decline weak nouns across all four cases.

Lesson Explanation

A small but genuinely important group of masculine nouns — called “weak nouns” — takes the ending -en or -n in EVERY case except the nominative singular — a system genuinely different from the regular declension covered in Part 3, where mainly the article, not the noun itself, changes.

Typical weak nouns: der Junge, der Kunde, der Löwe, der Name, der Kollege (the boy, the customer, the lion, the name, the colleague) — often, though not exclusively, nouns ending in an unstressed vowel or denoting living beings.

Full declension of der Junge: nominative der Junge, accusative den Jungen, dative dem Jungen, genitive des Jungen — the -n ending appears here in THREE of the four cases, not just in the dative as with regular plural nouns (Part 3, Lesson 3).

A genuinely irregular special case within this group: der Name additionally takes an -s in the genitive: des Namens (not just “des Namen”), a blend with the regular genitive ending from Part 3, Lesson 4. A genuinely common error among German learners is simply forgetting this ending in the accusative and dative, since it isn’t visible yet in the nominative.

Practice Questions