3.6 Other determiners

Like other determiners, possessives change their endings in accordance with the GENDER, NUMBER and CASE of the following noun:

Mein Vater traf meine Schwestern. (masc., sg., nom.) (fem., pl., acc.) My father met my sisters. Der Bruder meines Vaters traf den Lehrer meiner Schwestern. (masc., sg., gen.) (fem., pl., gen.) The brother of my father met the teacher of my sisters. OR: My father’s brother met my sisters’ teacher.

The case endings of possessive determiners are like those of ein and kein:

masculine feminine neuter plural

nominative mein meine mein meine accusative meinen meine mein meine genitive meines meiner meines meiner dative meinem meiner meinem meinen

Possessives can also be used as PRONOUNS (i.e. as the equivalent to English ‘mine’ rather than ‘my’), but they then have different endings (see 3.9).

Most of the other common determiners in German have the same endings as dieser (see 3.4). Many of them are used only or chiefly in the plural.

Alle (all/all the) is used in the plural with endings like dieser:

Sie hat alle guten Bonbons aufgegessen. She’s eaten up all the good sweets.

It can also be used without an ending in the singular and in the nominative/accusative plural, followed by a definite article, e.g. mit all dem Geld, all die braven Kinder.

Beide (both) is used in the plural with endings like dieser:

Ich möchte beide T-Shirts kaufen. I’d like to buy both T-shirts.

Ein paar (a few) does not decline. The determiner ein paar should not be confused with ein Paar (a pair), e.g. ein Paar Schuhe:

Wir fahren in ein paar Tagen nach

Griechenland. We’re going to Greece in a few days’ time.

Einige (some) has endings like dieser and is more common in the plural:

Nach einigem Überlegen (sg.)hat sie einige Bücher (pl.) gekauft. After some deliberation she bought some books.

Irgendein/irgendwelche (some/some…or other/any…at all) emphasizes indefiniteness. Irgendein is only used in the singular and has the endings of ein (see 3.2). Irgendwelche is used in the pluraland has endings like dieser:

Er hat irgendeinen Job bei einer Zeitung. He’s got some job with a newspaper. Sie hat mir Fotos von irgendwelchen Filmstars She showed me photographs of some gezeigt,von denen ich noch nie gehört habe. filmstars I’ve never heard of.

Jeder (each/every/any) has endings like dieser and is only used in the singular:

Wir spielen jeden Tag Monopoly. We play Monopoly every day.

Mancher (some/many, in the sense of ‘a fair number’) has endings like dieser and is more common in the plural:

An manchen Tagen bleibt Alfred einfach im Bett. Some days Alfred simply stays in bed.

Mehrere (several) has endings like dieser and is used in the plural:

Er brauchte zur Reparatur des

Computers mehrere Monate. He needed several months to mend the computer.

Sämtliche (all, referring to the members of a particular set) has endings like dieser:

In der Kreidezeit sind sämtliche Dinosaurier ausgestorben. All the dinosaurs died out in the

Cretaceous period.

Viel/viele (much/many/a lot of) usually has no ending in the singular, but endings like dieser in the plural:

Viel Glück!Ich hoffe,du fängst viele Fische. Good luck! I hope you catch lots of fish.

Was für (ein) (what sort of). The word ein declines like the indefinite article (see 3.2). It is absent in the plural:

Was für Tiere magst du am liebsten? Was für ein Mann ist er denn? What kind of animals do you like best? What sort of a man is he?