Weak Masculine Nouns (N-Declension)

The noun itself changes, not just the article

In every other German noun you've learned, the noun's own spelling stays fixed and only the article shifts (der Mann → den Mann). This small class of masculine nouns — mostly referring to people or animals (der Junge 'boy', der Student 'student', der Löwe 'lion') — breaks that rule and adds -n or -en to the noun itself in every case except the nominative singular. Malayalam nouns never change their base form this way; suffixes always attach cleanly onto an unchanging stem. Treat this as a short, memorizable list of exceptions rather than a rule to generalize.