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I've found a sentence in my learning book that I do not understand:

Sie findet ihren Kollegen sehr nett.

Shouldn't it be either:

Sie findet ihren Kollege sehr nett.

or:

Sie findet ihre Kollegen sehr nett.

As Kollegen is the plural of der Kollege, the plural accusative should be ihre instead of ihren, right ?

Wheatley
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    Kollege is a weak noun, see https://www.verbformen.de/deklination/substantive/Kollege.htm – RHa Mar 07 '24 at 19:03
  • @RHa Thank you, I was not aware of this feature of the language, seems that my book forgot to cover it... Or will cover it latter. – Wheatley Mar 07 '24 at 20:15
  • Wiktionary also has useful tables: https://de.wiktionary.org/wiki/Kollege – Carsten S Mar 09 '24 at 11:46

2 Answers2

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"Kollege" is meant to be masculine here. There is a feminine version "Kollegin" as well. This is one of a subclass of masculine nouns where most inflections end with "-n". So not only is the plural "Kollegen", but the accusative, dative, and genitive, both singular and plural, are all "Kollegen". There are a number of these nouns; they are mostly people, "Bauer", "Junge", "Kunde", "Student", ... and certain animals, "Hase", "Bär", ... . In this case it's the accusative so "Kollegen" is correct. The singular and plural both have the "-n" ending, so how do we know that it's supposed to be masculine and not plural? That's where the "ihren" determiner comes in. It also has the masculine accusative ending, so "ihren" for masculine rather than "ihre" for plural. Figuring out the correct combination of gender and case from German's rather complex system of inflections can take some getting used to.

German has four cases altogether, nominative, accusative, dative and genitive. (This is the order English speakers learn them, native German speakers use a different order.) Nearly all words in German, excluding verbs, are inflected according to case among other factors such as gender and number. The accusative and dative case of singular nouns is usually the same as the nominative case, which is the dictionary form. But there are exceptions and "Kollege" is one of them. (Some grammars call them "weak" nouns, as noted in the comments.) You may want to check other resources for a summary of German cases and inflections. If you're starting out then try Grimm Grammar. You might also try Bruce Duncan's A Review of German Grammar for a slighlty more advanced overview. There are other resources listed in the FAQ for this site as well.

RDBury
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  • My book didn't covered such particularity, at least yet. But all of the examples of nouns it gave so far didn't had any inflections... I'm confused... Does it concern only this subclass ? – Wheatley Mar 07 '24 at 19:47
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    @Wheatley - Have you covered all the cases yet? As far as I know all German nouns are inflected, some more than others. Nearly all add an "-s" in the genitive case, similar to the way English adds "-'s" for possessives. And you probably already know that German can form plurals in several ways; that also counts. You can't determine how a noun is inflected from anything simple like the gender; you have to learn it when you learn the word. But dictionaries list this information if you know where to look. There are some patterns to it though, such as the people/animals thing I mentioned. – RDBury Mar 07 '24 at 20:06
  • I'm quite new to the german language, a total beginner. I have covered only nominative and accusative yet – Wheatley Mar 07 '24 at 20:08
  • I've already seen the word Kollege in the nominative case, which had not any inflection. So now I understand that it depends on the case. – Wheatley Mar 07 '24 at 20:11
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    @Wheatley - Nominative and accusative are the same for most nouns, so if you've only covered those two I can see how you haven't seen inflected versions yet. Spoiler alert: there are two more cases, dative and genitive. I'll expand my answer a bit with links for further information. – RDBury Mar 07 '24 at 20:25
  • Thank you very much – Wheatley Mar 07 '24 at 22:36
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Sie findet ihren einen Kollegen sehr nett. Akkusativ

Sie findet ihre vielen Kollegen sehr nett. Plural

Schau hier, Follow link

Precise: "Den vielen schönen großen freundlichen Kollegen" in German is a possible construct as subject with a chain of adverbs/adjectives. Ask "whom?" and think on plural.

user unknown
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romanvolak
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  • Yes, but actually I've never seen an inflection for a noun in all of the examples that my book gave so far... So I guess that the word Kollege is some kind of exception, right ? – Wheatley Mar 07 '24 at 19:50
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    @Wheatley yes, like most masculine nouns that end in -e. Look up "weak nouns" or "n-declension". – wonderbear Mar 07 '24 at 20:37
  • Thank you, I wasn't aware of the existence of "weak nouns". I'll have a look at it. – Wheatley Mar 07 '24 at 22:38
  • @romanvolak I do not understand the "vielen", why don't we have "viel" ? – Wheatley Mar 07 '24 at 22:41