Understanding How to Use German Adjectives for Beginners

As an English speaker, you find the use of adjectives incredibly simple. If you know the adjective, you can just drop it in a sentence. It's not quite that easy in German.

Adjectives aren't necessary in German, but they add a lot to a tale or a memory. That makes it well worth it to learn how to use German adjectives in German.

Let's look at what you can do to get accustomed to working with German adjectives.

A Quick Review of Adjectives in German

Any word that helps to describe a noun or pronoun is an adjective. The word or words could indicate the number of apples, their color, or their hardness. You probably use adjectives much more often than you realize, mostly because they are so easy to use in English without having to give it much thought.

In both English and German, there are three primary types of adjectives (you can learn more about the subcatagories of English adjectives if you are curious). This is important to know because it has a much bigger effect on the adjective in German. Each adjective type is based on the noun that it describes. Another way to think of this is it affects where the adjective appears in the sentence.

Predicative – Prädkativ

When an adjective is separated from the noun that it describes, it is predicative. In German it is called prädkativ. This occurs when the noun appears in the subject and the adjective appears in the predicate.

Here are a few examples:

• Der Apfel ist grün. The apple is green.
• Das Pferd ist hübsch. The horse is pretty.
• Der Tisch ist neu. The table is new.

The adjective is in the predicate, separating it from the noun it describes. This means you don’t have to change it based on the gender of the noun.

This is obviously the easy type of adjective and the one you can use as you start to incorporate new adjectives into your vocabulary and usage.

Attributive - Attributiv

Attributive adjectives, called attributive in German, is when the adjective appears just before the noun. This is probably the most common use of adjectives since we usually think of talking about young dog, yellow umbrella, or silly meme.

Here are a few examples:

• Der junge Hund rannte den ganzen Weg nach Hause. The young dog ran all the way home.
• Ich konnte nicht lernen, wenn draußen laute Kinder spielten. I could not study with the loud children playing outside.
• Mein Bruder hat den letzten Wettbewerb gewonnen. My brother won the last contest.

When you use these adjectives, you have to be aware of the gender of the noun and change the adjective to reflect that. This also means you have to be aware of the use of the noun, so the adjective requires changing not only depending on the gender of the noun, but how it is used.

This is why it is tricky to use these adjectives. The version of the adjective you use is dependent on the noun’s gender and use in the sentence. A feminine nominative noun has a different adjective case than a feminine accusative noun or feminine dative noun.

Adverbial - Adverbial

The third type of adjective is the adverbial, which is the term used in both English and German. Adverbial nouns are similar to predicative because they appear after the verb. However, they are used like an adverb.

And that makes them easier. In English, you would add -ly to an adjective to make an adverb. In German, you don’t have to do anything. Just add the adjective after the verb, and you are done.

Here are a couple of examples:

• Der Räuber rannte schnell davon. The robber ran away quickly.
• Der Teenager schlich leise die Treppe hinauf. The teen snuck up the stairs lightly.
• Sie stellten das Klavier vorsichtig ab. They set the piano down carefully.

Comparative Adjectives in German

Comparative adjectives are actually a lot easier in German. In English, you have to know if an adjective should have more/most or if it should be changed to -er/-est. For most cases in German, you just add -er or -te.

The following is a table of some of the most common adjectives that are used for comparisons.

There are some exceptions, as seen in the table. That’s why it can get tricky with comparative adjectives. In most cases, the comparative and superlative versions are predictable. However, you will need to memorize the exceptions, like fast (schnell) and groß.

Also, when you use the superlative version (-te), you use the preposition am instead of using an article. In these cases, am means the, and it is part of indicating that the term is a superlative adjective.

Most Common Adjective Groups

There are thousands of adjectives, and many of them can be grouped for easy use. When you start to learn to use adjectives, you can work with a couple of these groups to get comfortable.

For example, colors are some of the most commonly used examples of adjectives because so much is described by its colors. You talk about someone’s brown hair, red bag, and purple jacket.

The following are a few colors and their translations to help you start memorizing adjectives and putting them to good use.

Sizes are probably the next most commonly used adjectives. There are far fewer of them too. Here are the ones you are most likely to encounter.

Shapes and shape terms are another adjective group. You probably won’t use them as much as colors, but you will use them more often than you probably realize. The following table provides a look at some of the common shape terms, including the terms you probably use almost daily.

Emotional and Personality Adjectives

When it comes to describing people and pets, there are a lot of adjectives to use. Unlike the previous groups, these adjectives usually aren’t visually obvious. You can’t always see that someone has a bubbly personality or that someone is feeling anxious (sometimes you can, but not always).

The following table provides some of the most common adjectives to describe traits and emotions.

Mastering German Adjectives: Your Path to Fluency

Adjectives may seem difficult, mostly because you have a lot more to consider when you use an adjective before a noun. You have to consider the noun’s gender and how it is used. However, it’s not always harder to use an adjective in German.

Make some time on your schedule to get used to using some of the adjectives in the tables. Switch up the types of adjectives to get a better feel for how to use them. Start to incorporate them into your daily use – that won’t be nearly so hard as you think since we have a tendency to want to describe things when speaking. It creates a better picture of what we are saying.