Adjective Endings
विशेषण-अंत
When a German adjective sits directly before a noun, it takes an ending that depends on the article, the noun's gender, and its case — the most tangled rule at this level, one step beyond Hindi's straightforward adjective agreement.
Grammar Comparison
व्याकरण तुलना
A genuinely new layer — Hindi adjectives also change, but not in this many layers
der gute Mann / die gute Frau / das gute Kind (all 'the good...', -e ending after der/die/das)
अच्छा आदमी / अच्छी औरत / अच्छा बच्चा
Hindi adjectives also change with gender and number (अच्छा/अच्छी/अच्छे), so this idea isn't entirely new. But German attributive adjectives (those placed directly before a noun) take an ending that depends on three things at once: which determiner comes first (a der-word, an ein-word, or none), the noun's gender/number, and its case. After der/die/das in the nominative, almost every adjective just takes -e (the 'weak' declension) — the determiner has already shown the gender, so the adjective doesn't have to work as hard.
After ein-words, the adjective has to pick up the slack
ein guter Mann / eine gute Frau / ein gutes Kind
एक अच्छा आदमी / एक अच्छी औरत / एक अच्छा बच्चा
ein itself takes no ending in the masculine and neuter nominative (ein Mann, ein Kind look the same), so here the adjective has to signal the gender: -er for masculine, -e for feminine, -es for neuter (almost like a mini der/die/das). This 'mixed declension' — where the adjective sometimes supplies information the article couldn't — is the hardest part for English speakers, but for Hindi speakers the idea of 'the adjective agrees with the noun' is already familiar; there are just more layers here.
Case also changes the ending
Ich sehe den guten Mann. (accusative masculine: -en, not -e)
मैं अच्छे आदमी को देखता हूँ।
Moving from nominative to accusative shifts the masculine ending from -e to -en (der gute Mann → den guten Mann); feminine and neuter stay -e in the accusative. This is why the ending can't be memorized as one fixed suffix per gender — it has to be learned as a small table of article-type × gender × case, by repeating common phrases rather than deriving the rule mid-sentence.
Vocabulary
शब्दावली
| German | Pronunciation | Hindi | English |
|---|---|---|---|
| der gute Mann | dair GOO-teh mahn | अच्छा आदमीacchā ādmī | the good man |
| die gute Frau | dee GOO-teh frow | अच्छी औरतacchī aurat | the good woman |
| das gute Kind | dahs GOO-teh kint | अच्छा बच्चाacchā baccā | the good child |
| ein guter Mann | eyen GOO-ter mahn | एक अच्छा आदमीek acchā ādmī | a good man |
| eine gute Frau | EYE-neh GOO-teh frow | एक अच्छी औरतek acchī aurat | a good woman |
| ein gutes Kind | eyen GOO-tes kint | एक अच्छा बच्चाek acchā baccā | a good child |
| den guten Mann | dayn GOO-ten mahn | अच्छे आदमी को (accusative)acche ādmī ko | the good man (accusative) |
| die netten Leute | dee NET-en LOY-teh | अच्छे लोग (बहुवचन)acche log | the nice people (plural) |
| ein neues Auto | eyen NOY-es OW-toh | एक नई गाड़ीek naī gāṛī | a new car |
| ein interessantes Buch | eyen in-teh-reh-SAHN-tes bookh | एक दिलचस्प किताबek dilcasp kitāb | an interesting book |