There are a few signals that give away a noun's gender. The endings
-ig or -ling e.g. are always masculine, and so are -or, -ismus and the
majority of nouns ending in -er. The problem is that those five
endings are as abstract and meaningless as the articles themselves and
therefore are still pretty difficult to remember and to apply.

The best way to deal with these article-signals is to organise them in
the following way:

    der ig-ling-or-ismus+er

which we would read like a single word:

    der iglingorismuser

It’s still abstract but now we only have to deal with one abstract
information -iglingorismuser- instead of five (-ig, -ling, -or,
-ismus, -er). Our new word-creation also has a melody that makes it
easier to remember. Try it. Read it out loud a few times and try to
recite it simply from your memory until you know it by heart. It took
me a day of occasional recital and I still am able to recall it in an
instant.

Of course there are also such signals for neuter and feminine
nouns. Combined to mnemonic words they look like this:

    das Tum-chen-ma-ment-um-lein+nis &

    die Heit-ung-keit-ei-schaft-ion-ie-tät-ik+ur+e

Practice them until you can recite them in a second or less so that
you can focus on meaning instead on grammar when speaking. A friend of
mine has written a little song to help learners like you to master
them quickly. Make sure to check it out. There are also many good tips
on how to learn abstract information in general in this lovely
article.

You might have noted the plus sign (+) in front of some endings
above. That simply means that those endings are not 100% reliable
regarding their signal. But they are mostly indicating the gender
above. You can find some exceptions here.

The beauty of this technique lies in its efficiency as you will be
able to identify a noun’s gender even without knowing what that noun
means. The word „Einberufung“ e.g. will most certainly be unknown to
most of you but you will recognize its ending -ung easily and
therefore know that it is of feminine gender. By the way it means
„draft“ into military service.

Why don’t you test your current knowledge of the articles with the
following exercise before you practice the three lovely mnemonic words
above for some time and then come back to this article and test your
new skill? Like this you will have a before-after comparison and
therefore a visual feedback for what you have learned with help of
this article.

Test of your current article-recognition skills. Cover the text above
so that you won’t be tempted to peek. What gender do the following
German nouns have? You can write either der, das, die or simply
(m)asculine, (n)euter or (f)eminine.


song to remember
https://youtu.be/DCu90oW85K4



Test your knowledge of the German Articles

    der ig-ling-or-ismus+er
    die Heit-ung-keit-ei-schaft-ion-ie-tät-ik+ur+e
    das Tum-chen-ma-ment-um-lein+nis &


das Bürschchen     (stripling/laddie)
das Fräulein       (Miss)
das Management     (management)
das Museum         (museum)
das Mädchen        (girl)
das Wachstum       (growth)
-------------------------------------------
der Autor          (author)
der Eimer          (bucket)
der Feigling       (coward)
der Frühling       (spring)
der Kommunismus    (communism)
der Körper         (body)
der Köter          (cur)
der Meister        (master)
der Schmetterling  (butterfly)
der September      (September)
der Oktober        (October)
----------------------------------
die Abteilung      (department)
die Ewigkeit       (eternity)
die Fabrik         (factory)
die Gesellschaft   (society)
die Information    (information)
die Logik          (logic)
die Minute         (minute)
die Mongolei       (Mongolia)
die Nase           (nose)
die Nation         (nation)
die Natur          (nature)
die Pflanze        (plant)
die Polizei        (police)
die Psychologie    (psychology)
die Struktur       (structure)
die Wohnung        (flat)
-------------------------------------------
das Getreide       (grain)----------------------
der Aufbau         (structure)--------------------
der Schurke        (scoundrel)--------------------
-------------------------------------------



The answers you will find on the next page, so maybe copy these words
into a word document or on a piece of paper to be able to easily
correct your answers. Feel free to let me know your before/after
results and what you think of this technique.

And in case you'd like to test yourself a bit more, here is another
quiz for you.

One last note: This technique does not cover all possible article
signals but the most common ones. And it also does not help you with
all those nouns that simply do not have any signal-ending yet there is
also a few categories that usually stick to one gender, like
e.g. alcoholic beverages that are mostly masculine (e.g. der Wein) or
motorcycle bands that are exclusively feminine (e.g. die Harley
Davidson) and the second technique is coming soon.

Stay tuned and thanks for reading.

========================
exceptions

- Usually masculine

NOTE: Because there are so many masculine -er nouns, only exceptions
are listed here.

e Butter butter
e Feder feather, quill, pen; spring
e Jungfer spinster, old maid; virgin, young lady
e Mutter mother
e Schwester sister
e Tochter daughter
----------------------------------
s Fenster window
s Futter feed, food, fodder
s Gewitter thunderstorm
s Kupfer copper
s Lager camp, storeroom
s Opfer victim, sacrifice
s Poker poker (game)
s Puder powder(also masc)
s Silber silver
s Theater theater
s Wasser water
s Wetter weather
s Wunder miracle, wonder
s Zimmer room
----------------------------------
e Kiefer pine    but r Kiefer jawbone
e Leiter ladder  but r Leiter leader, head, manager
e Steuer tax     but s Steuer rudder, helm
s Messer knife   but r Messer gauge