nach Hause ‘home’
zu Hause ‘at home’
im Laufe ‘in the course of’
im Grunde genommen ‘basically’
in gewissem Maße ‘to a certain degree’28.2 Weak declension
(a) The term ‘weak’ denotes masculine nouns which add -n or -en to the nominative
singular form in the accusative, dative and genitive singular, and in the plural. Weak
nouns need to be learnt when they are first met (see 28.4):There are relatively few weak nouns; they include mostly nouns denoting living beings:
der Affe ‘monkey’
der Chirurg ‘surgeon’
der Franzose ‘Frenchman’
der Junge ‘boy’
der Neffe ‘nephew’
der Oberst ‘colonel’
der Spatz ‘sparrow’(b) A small number of weak nouns have an -ns ending in the genitive singular. The
most common are:der Buchstabe ‘letter (of alphabet)’
der Friede ‘peace’
der Funke ‘spark’
der Gedanke ‘thought’
der Glaube ‘faith’
der Name ‘name’
der Wille ‘will’NOTE The neuter noun das Herz (heart) has a weak ending in all forms except the accusative singular
(das Herz) and also has genitive singular des Herzens.28.3 Variations
A fairly small number of nouns feature the normal masculine/neuter genitive singular
in -(e)s but the weak plural in -n. For example:
das Bett, des Bett(e)s, die Betten
der Staat, des Staat(e)s, die Staaten
der See, des Sees, die SeenSee also^29 (pp. 50–3).
Singular PluralNominative der Mensch die Menschen
Accusative den Menschen die Menschen
Dative dem Menschen der Menschen
Genitive des Menschen der Menschen28
Noun declensions