The Nominative Case in German

The Nominative case (Nominativ) is the subject case in German grammar, representing the person or thing performing the action of the verb. It is the default base form of nouns, pronouns, articles, and adjectives as listed in dictionaries. It answers the questions Wer? (Who?) for people and Was? (What?) for inanimate things and abstract concepts.

In the Nominative, masculine articles are der (definite) and ein (indefinite), feminine are die and eine, neuter are das and ein, and plural is die (with no indefinite article). Adjectives modifying nouns in the Nominative take specific endings depending on the type of declination: strong declination ends in -er (masculine), -e (feminine), -es (neuter), and -e (plural), while weak declination after definite articles takes -e for singular and -en for plural.

Apart from being the subject, the Nominative is also used for subject complements after copular linking verbs such as sein (to be), werden (to become), bleiben (to remain), and scheinen (to seem). A typical learner error is mistakenly using the Accusative case for a predicate noun after sein (e.g., saying Er ist einen netten Mann instead of Er ist ein netter Mann). Make sure to keep both nouns in the Nominative in such sentences.