German Adjective Declension: Guide & Table

German adjectives that serve a predicative function are not declined, and therefore retain their base form without endings. They are not declined because they remain outside the noun phrase: they do not directly affect the noun, which is the declinable element of the sentence.

Instead, they are linked to the verb: adjectives with a predicative function are always found near the verb they refer to, and with which they create the predicate nominal.

Predicate nominal = verb + adjective
Der Film ist großartig = The film is fantastic

Predicative adjectives follow the two auxiliary verbs sein (to be) and werden (to become), but also the verbs scheinen (to seem) and bleiben (to stay, to remain).

Naturally, we cannot speak of adjectives following the verb haben : being transitive, it can only take an object complement and therefore an infinitive verb or a noun.

The adjectives that follow all the other verbs, however, perform an adverbial function and are therefore called adverbial adjectives .

Maria läuft schnell . = Maria runs fast / Maria runs quickly (adverbial adjective because it provides information about how the action occurs.)

As you can see from the examples seen so far, adjectives with a predicative function are always placed at the end of the sentence .

Attributive adjectives provide additional information about the noun they refer to. For this reason, they are inextricably linked to it and agree with the noun in gender, number, and case .

Unlike predicatives, these adjectives are placed before the noun, and more precisely between the article and the noun they refer to.

Sammy hat ein starkes Herz. = Sammy has a strong heart .

Even if there are two adjectives referring to a noun, they both go before it.

Sammy hat ein starkes und gesundes Herz. = Sammy has a strong and healthy heart .

Notably, in German the position of the adjective cannot be changed at will.

Attributive adjectives, then, are declined differently depending on the situation. Specifically, the declension of adjectives in German includes three different cases:

• First declension : called the weak declension , it is used when the adjective is preceded by the definite article or by mancher, beide, solcher, aller, jeder, jener, dieser (indefinite and demonstrative adjectives).

  Two endings are allowed: -e or -en . Da sind diese roten Autos. = There are these red cars .
  

• Second declension : called the mixed declension , it is applied when the adjective is preceded by the indefinite article or by kein , the direct negation of ein. Here the ending is always -en , except for the nominative and accusative singular, where it instead refers to the endings of the definite article (der → -er , die → -e , das → es ).
  
  Ich sah einige schöne Pferde herumlaufen. = I saw some beautiful horses around.

• Third declension : called the strong declension , it is used when the adjective is not preceded by an article. It is the simplest to learn, because the declension follows the same endings as the definite article . The only exceptions are the masculine genitive and the neuter genitive , which instead have their own endings.
  
  Junge Studenten haben an Ihre Tür geklopft. = Young students have knocked on your door.

Let's now look at the corresponding table for each of the three possible declensions of the German adjective .

Let's start with the first declension :

As with any topic in the German language, this rule doesn't always apply; in fact, there are several exceptions. Even with regard to the declension of German adjectives, we can find irregularities, and special cases that follow a different declension or aren't declined at all, even though technically they should.

• The adjective hoch (tall) drops the c when it is in the attributive position.
  
  Der hohe Baum spendete Schatten. = The tall tree provided shade.
• Some adjectives drop the e , such as dunkel (dark), sauer (sour), edel (noble), teuer (expensive).
  
  Ich mag keine saure Sahne. = I don't like sour cream .
• Adjectives that end in -er and that derive from the names of countries or cities are not inflected and are written with a capital letter.
  
  Dein Amerikanischer Freund ist nett. = Your American friend is nice.
• Adjectives that end in -a are not inflected .
  
  Der lila Hut ist mein Favorit. = The purple hat is my favorite.

Then there are other special cases, which depend on the word following the adjective. In fact, if the adjective follows a vowel or a foreign word, the -e is often-but not always-omitted .

An example to understand better:

Es ist ein teures Hotel. = It's an expensive hotel .

In this case we would expect " teueres ", but since the following word is foreign, the -e preceding the ending is dropped, and we therefore have " teures ".

Or, if the adjective ends in -el , the -e ending is dropped for pronunciation and spelling reasons. The same goes if the adjective already ends in -e, and then the -e ending is omitted to avoid repeating the same sound.

These, however, are very obvious special cases that you shouldn't have trouble identifying and recognizing in a German text. In fact, we're not particularly surprised that the adjective leise (quiet), when declined, becomes leiser rather than leiseer : this ellipsis is something that often occurs in the declension of German words, and is natural to the evolution of the language.