KS3 · German · Year 8
Things I like: nominative adjective agreement, definite and indefinite articles
Who am I? Adjective agreement, 'weil' and 'denn'
Learn it. Recall it. Make it stick.
IllumED Slides
IllumED · 1/10
Your learning goal
I understand adjective endings with definite and indefinite articles in the nominative case and can use them to talk about things I like.
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Things I like: nominative adjective agreement, definite and indefinite articles: slides adapted from the imported teaching text; recall questions created from its keywords, learning points and common mistakes. Self-check practice, with no automatic grading or XP. Answers stay on this page and are cleared when you leave.
Original teaching resources
The original illustrated PowerPoint is available as well as the IllumED text slides. It retains the publisher’s design and credits.
Download original PowerPoint ↓What you’ll learn
I understand adjective endings with definite and indefinite articles in the nominative case and can use them to talk about things I like.
Key learning points
- [ai] and [ei] can sound the same in German, but in words borrowed from English [ai] is pronounced as in English.
- In German, when adjectives come after the verb 'sein' (to be) they do not change.
- In German, adjectives in front of a noun add endings; this is called adjective agreement.
- Add '-e' for the singular nominative ending of all adjectives with definite articles.
- The singular nominative adjective endings for indefinite articles are -er (masculine), -e (feminine), and -es (neuter).
Words to know
- [ai]
- sound-symbol correspondence (SSC) pronounced as in 'der Hai'
- adjective agreement
- when the ending of an adjective matches the noun it describes in gender and number
- nominative
- form(s) used for the subject or 'doer' of the verb
Common mistakes
When German adjectives come before the noun, they don't change their spelling, just like in English, e.g., 'The dog is black'; 'The black dog is over there.'.
In German, when adjectives come after the verb 'sein' (to be) they don't change. However, adjectives in front of a noun add endings do; this is called adjective agreement. There are different endings depending on gender (m, f, nt) and on the article.
For parents, carers and teachers
- Adjective endings can be perceived as a big leap in complexity for pupils. However, the foundational knowledge for adjective endings is: noun gender, definite and indefinitive articles, subject and object cases, all of this is incrementally taught and regularly practised in the Y7 SOW.