A busy building site full of machines and tools to find: tap each one, then give it its article.
1Machines in -er are masculine
2A compound takes the gender of its last part
3Words with Ge- are often neuter
Why this matters
A picture hunt instead of a deck: one building site, seen from the front, with 32 machines, materials and tools to find — der Kran with its Haken, der Bagger, die Schubkarre, das Gerüst against the half-built wall and the workbench full of tools on the right. These are the words you need when a neighbour builds, a road is dug up or the news reports on construction work. The prompt asks, for example, Wo ist der Presslufthammer? You tap it in the picture. Each find shows its label, coloured by its gender, then leaves a small tick in that colour, so you can see what you have already found. A tap on an empty spot costs nothing; a tap on the wrong object tells you what you hit and you keep looking, and after three misses the right one is shown. No object is asked twice in the same run. Once you have passed a run, the hunt turns harder: the prompt hides the article (Wo ist ___ Schubkarre?), and after the find you choose der, die or das yourself.
Memory trick · 1 of 3
Machines in -er are masculine
Many of the big machines here end in -er and take der: der Bagger, der Betonmischer, der Kipplaster, der Container. Hear the -er at the end and say der before you even think.
der Betonmischercement mixer
der Kipplasterdump truck
Quick check
Bagger hebt die Schaufel.
Rule · 2 of 3
A compound takes the gender of its last part
Bau + Toilette: die Toilette, so die Bautoilette. Kabel + Trommel: die Trommel, so die Kabeltrommel. Strom + Aggregat: das Aggregat, so das Stromaggregat. The last word always wins.
die Wasserwaagespirit level (die Waage)
das Betonrohrconcrete pipe (das Rohr)
Quick check
Which article goes with Kabeltrommel?
Watch out · 3 of 3
Words with Ge- are often neuter
Nouns that start with Ge- are very often das: das Gerüst, das Gerät, das Gewicht. So it is das Gerüst and das Funkgerät, even though the scaffolding is huge and feels like it should be der.
das Gerüst, Plural: -escaffolding
das Funkgerät, Plural: -ewalkie-talkie (das Gerät)
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