When to use the article “das” in German: Neuter nouns

In this article, I’ll show you how to easily recognize when to use the article “das” in German. There are no secrets here; there are several endings and rules that will help you quickly in this seemingly difficult situation.

Let’s start with the endings. When a noun has these endings it is almost always of the neuter gender:

German	English
–chen	das Mädchen (the girl), das Kätzchen (the kitten)
–lein	das Fräulein (miss ), das Häuslein (the small house)
–tum	das Datum (the date), das Christentum (the Christianity) – exceptions: der Irrtum (the mistake), der Reichtum (the wealth)

Also foreign nouns ending in:

German	English
–ment	das Dokument (the document), das Kompliment (the compliment) – exceptions: der Zement (the cement), der Konsument (the consumer)
–um	das Album (the album), das Zentrum (the center)
–ma	das Dilemma (the dilemma), das Trauma (the trauma) – exception: die Firma (the company)

There is another interesting rule that you should remember in order to master German articles more efficiently. It consists of the fact that if you use adjectives or verbs as nouns, these nouns will have the genitive das, e.g. schön (beautiful), das Schöne (beauty), kennenlernen (to meet), das Kennenlernen (the meeting). Remember to spell it with a capital letter! Look at the following examples:

German	English
das Schöne	the beauty
Er sah nur das Schöne an diesem Ort.	He only saw the beauty of this place.
das Romantische	the romanticism
Diesem Restaurant fehlt das Romantische.	This restaurant lacks romanticism.
das Arbeiten	working
Sie mag das Arbeiten mit ihm.	She likes working with him.
das Fernsehen	watching TV
Das Fernsehen gefällt vielen Leuten.	A lot of people like watching TV.
das Kennenlernen	meeting
Das erste Kennenlernen lief nicht so gut.	The first meeting didn’t go very well.