Dem und den Nachbarn
When dealing with noun endings across grammatical cases, you may have noticed the reoccuring -en and -n endings.
Singular | Plural | |
Nominative | der Hase | die Hasen |
Accusative | den Hasen | die Hasen |
Dative | dem Hasen | den Hasen |
Genitive | des Hasen | der Hasen |
As you can see on der Hase, n-declension occurs in all cases except for the nominative singular case. It adds an -n if the noun ends vowels and an -en if it ends in consonants.
The n-declension only occurs on masculine nouns which follow a weak declension and appear with an article. Those words are usually masculine animals such as _der Rabe, der Hase, masculine persons such as der Junge, der Kunde, as well as masculine nationals: der Deutsche, der Franzose, and masculine occupations: der Student, der Journalist.
Identifying the weak declension on nouns is no easy feat. It is derived from Proto-Germanic word stems which ended in -n, which are now categorized as "weak nouns". As a rule of thumb, you can usually see that a noun is a weak noun if you know that its plural ends in -n.
But as always we're dealing with a few exceptions:
Both der Bauer and der Nachbar use an -n ending despite ending in a consonant.
Singular | Plural | |
Nominative | der Nachbar | die Nachbarn |
Accusative | den Nachbarn | die Nachbarn |
Dative | dem Nachbarn | den Nachbarn |
Genitive | des Nachbarn | der Nachbarn |
A few nouns using the n-declension have the ending -(e)ns in the genitive singular, some of those nouns are: der Name, der Friede, der Gedanke, der Galube, der Wille.
Singular | Plural | |
Nominative | der Friede | die Frieden |
Accusative | den Frieden | die Frieden |
Dative | dem Frieden | den Frieden |
Genitive | des Friedens | der Frieden |
A very special case is the heart! Das Herz is a neutral noun but it uses the n-declension in the plural cases and the singular genitive case, as the only non-masculine noun.
Singular | Plural | |
Nominative | das Herz | die Herzen |
Accusative | den Herz | die Herzen |
Dative | dem Herz | den Herzen |
Genitive | des Herzens | der Herzen |
Another unique case is the noun der Herr which ends in -n in singular and -en in plural.
Singular | Plural | |
Nominative | der Herr | die Herren |
Accusative | den Herrn | die Herren |
Dative | dem Herrn | den Herren |
Genitive | des Herrn | der Herren |
The usage of n-declension is fading and more frequently left out entirely. A good example would be the usage of den Nachbar being more common than den Nachbarn nowadays. Both spelling are grammatically correct however.