Voted Best Answer
May 26, 2013 - 09:18 AM
Herr Martins, I am a Fluenz Spanish learner, but I have an advanced degree in German language and literature and am fairly fluent in German. I must agree with your colleagues regarding both the definite articles (der, die, das) and the indefinite (ein, eine). I still struggle with the gender (Geschlecht) of nouns which is going to determine whether one uses the correct article. The declension (nominative, accusative, dative & plural) of a noun is probably is hardest for non-native speakers and it's very easy to use the wrong form of an article or even an adjective. Don't worry about it, unless you are trying to perfect your language skills. It's mostly important for writing and not so for speaking. In many cases a native speaker talks so quickly that you can't really discern the article or adjective ending he/she used. I correspond with many native German speakers regularly and I find that many of them actually make grammatical errors in this area. If you use the wrong article in speaking, you will still be understood. Viel Glück sowie Spaß in Lubeck. Das ist eine wunderschöne Gelegenheit.