Weak declination or n-declination in German

A weak declination or n-declination is a trifle that is almost imperceptible, but you need to know it for a competent speech.

The idea is simple. The names of the noun in case of declination in the cases receive the end “-en” always, except for the nominative case (Nominativ) in the singular.
Here are the nouns related to this weak inclination:

· Male nouns with the ending “-e”, denoting living beings (people / animals): der Kunde (client), der Alte (old man);

· Monosyllabic nouns denoting people or animals: der Mensch (man), der Held (hero);

· Foreign words with suffixes “-ent-“, “-ant-“, “-et-“, “-at-“, “-ot-“, “-ist-“, “-nom-“, “-soph – “,” -graph- “,” -loge- “which are stressed: der Student, der Laborant, der Poet, der Diplomat, der Patriot, der Polizist, der Agronom, der Philosoph, der Fotograph, der Philologe;

· The word dar Herz.
Here are some examples of n-declination in practice:

· Ich gebe dem Studenten einen Rat – I give the student advice;

· Ich soll einen Diplomaten fragen – I should ask the diplomat;

· Es ist ein Auto des Polizisten is a police car;

· Es ist die Tat der Helden – this is the act of the main characters.

Interesting information!

Finally we got to one of the most important topics of the German language – these are pretexts.

Now we are talking about time prepositions.
Prepositions of time answer the questions: “when?” (“Wann?”) And “how long?” (“Wie lange?”)

The masculine nouns that do not belong to a strong declension receive the ending “-s” in the Genetiv (genitive) of the singular, and the same nouns strong declension receive the ending “-en”, as we have already found out. There is also a separate group that receive both endings – “-ens”. These words include: der Name (name), der Gedanke (thought), der Buchstabe (letter), der Wille (will), der Glaube (faith), der Friede (world), der Funke (hint), das Herz ( a heart). Example: des Willens, des Namens, des Herzens … In all other cases and numbers, they have the standard for -n. In addition to “das Herz”, which does not receive this ending in the singular in the accusative case.

That’s all you need to know about the weak declination. In fact, these are 3 groups + one word and several exceptions to the rules. We advise it to memorize once and not think about it anymore)