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Grammatik 8-1 ~ Colors
yellow: gelb
blue: blau
red: rot
black: schwarz
white: weiß
orange: orange
pink: pink
violet: lila
cyan: türkis
brown: braun
grey: grau
light-grey: hellgrau
dark-grey: dunkelgrau
Grammatik 8-2 ~ Possessive Adjectives, Pronouns, and the Genitive Case
Recall the following from Gespräch 3-1:
- Karl: Ja. Und danach bringst du mich auf deinem Motorrad zu meiner Wohnung.
Which translates:
- Carl: 'Yes. And after that take me on your motorcycle to my apartment'.
The sentence demonstrates two of the possessive adjectives. These are (singular) 'my', 'your', and 'his/her/its' in English and mein, dein, and sein/ihr/sein in German. Note that because these are adjectives, the word ending must reflect the case and gender of the noun being modified (see Grammatik 4-1 above).
In German, the genitive case correspond to the English possessive case or to the objective case proceeded by of to denote possession. If the possessive is not followed by a noun, it becomes a possessive pronoun (see Pronoun Tables).
NOM. | ACC. | DAT. | POSS. PRON. | |
I, me | ich | mich | mir | mein |
you | du | dich | dir | dein |
he, him | er | ihn | ihm | sein |
she, her | sie | sie | ihr | ihr |
it | es | es | ihm | sein |
we, us | wir | uns | uns | unser |
you (all) | ihr | euch | euch | eurer |
they, them | sie | sie | ihnen | ihr |
you (formal) | Sie | Sie | Ihnen | Ihr |
The pattern in the case endings of the possessive adjectives is that seen in Lektion 4 for the word ein. We can generalize these endings as in the following table, where we can express plural endings because other so-called ein-words do have plurals:
Ein-group Endings | ||||
NOM. | ACC. | DAT. | GEN. | |
Masculine | -- | --en | --em | --es |
Feminine | --e | --e | --er | --er |
Neuter | -- | -- | --em | --es |
Plural | --e | --e | --en | --er |
The small group of words that take these endings (in addition to ein) includes the possessive adjectives and kein ("not any" or "no" in the sense of none).
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Section II.A:
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Section II.B:
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Section II.C:
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