Lesson 1: German Definite Articles! DER, DIE, or DAS?

          My name is Steven as you may know. This blog is dedicated to learning German and some German culture. I am an American so there are limits to what I can teach you, but do not fret, I would never teach you something that I am unsure about. As for German culture, the same goes. I will provide you with what knowledge I've obtained plus websites so you can discover for yourself. More or less, this blog will help you and I to keep a lot of information in one place. You will find that learning German requires a lot of dedication, practice, effort, and organization, but together we will make it fun. Lots of pictures and songs for visual learners. Lots of examples for you book worms. :) Bear with me right now as I am just setting this blog up. This is my first blog, so I will need time to adjust.
         On a side note, any feedback you give will be greatly appreciated. Any English or German texts within this blog may have typos or grammatical errors. German natives or fellow learners, feel free to help. The more knowledge you have of German, the better. :) 
         Okay, so now, I would like to share some helpful advice. Some things that will help you when starting to learn German is finding a great translator. I suggest this one: http://dict.tu-chemnitz.de/ or Google's translator https://translate.google.com/. The most important thing while learning vocabulary in German is to memorize the definite articles of each noun or "der" "die" or "das". These words translate to the, the, and the.
          "Der" is pronounced like the "der" in the name Derek. This article is masculine and goes before "manly" nouns. "Die" is a feminine article and is pronounced like the "dee" in deed. "Das" is a neuter article and is pronounced like "dahs". Look at these examples and take not of which objects they precede:  

  REMEMBER: German articles need to be learned with each noun. There is no system as to which noun is der, die, or das. You just have to learn whether it is der, die, or das... Pay attention as you look at the picture above, the man is masculine so it is "der Mann (der Mahn)". The woman is feminine so it is "die Frau (dee Frouw)". The girl however is neuter so it is "das Mädchen (dahs Madekhin)." Other examples of this system include German title names, such as: the police man (der Polizist), the police woman (die Polizistin). Notice that the woman police officer picks up an "in" ending with a "die" article which is common to any title to let the reader/listener know if the person is a woman or man. Don't pay attention to pronunciation. We are only learning the difference between der, die, and das and how they are used. When it comes to inanimate objects, the article could be any of the three. So learn that the table is "der Tisch" and the wall is "die Wand" because later on these articles will change endings depending on prepositions and action.

     Review: There are three "the"s in German= DER, DIE, and DAS.  Der is masculine, die is feminine, and das is neuter. Every object or idea has its own der, die, or das and these articles must be learned individually. The only system to learning der, die, and das is that most title names differentiate between male and female by using die or das. If I told you that father was "Vater" you could tell me that it is "der Vater" because he is masculine. There are some other rules, but all rules have their exceptions.  Look at the following "endings" which always tell you if the noun is der, die, or das: 

 To the right: Common endings to German nouns
 To the left: What is always there article.  
For example: The candy= die Süßigkeit. So it is always die (place route word here)+keit.

SO LEARN YOUR

Hearing these words is better than reading them! Get on Youtube and search around. You will find some great videos, I'm sure. Here are some videos from great native Germans:
http://youtu.be/dNA3YSRGXoI  (Deutsch für Euch video)
http://youtu.be/MxDVXiEaudQ (Get Germanized video)