It is hard but learning Turkish is even harder.

I think it's helpful to separate the concepts. So:

definite article = the

indefinite article = a

You can definitely remember that! Then make sure you understand the cases.

Accusative: the object of the sentence (e.g. I opened THE DOOR, Jane bought THEs DRESS)

Genitive: possessive (the suitcase OF THE MAN), but now rare so you can ignore it for now

Dative: pretty much everything else, usually with a preposition (he found the book IN THE KITCHEN)

If you can get your head round these principles, it will then be much easier to understand how the articles work in context.

The Goethe Institute offers German courses, where these things will be explained in a much more intuitive way. www.goethe.de/ins/de/en/m/kur/typ.html?gclid=Cj0KCQiA8aOeBhCWARIsANRFrQE9vlVkGMC4wONYcVj0EZpxks8InXS9CfITENuHVGntXbDXXYmH6WkaAub_EALw_wcB There are also free Oak Academy lessons for KS3 and 4 German: classroom.thenational.academy/subjects-by-key-stage/key-stage-3/subjects/german

Sounds like you haven't come across some core grammatical concepts before and that makes things difficult now. Duolingo is really really bad for this and it may make more sense for you to look for a more structured way of teaching- pp have made some suggestions. If there's a really good bookstore near you maybe also browse there for a textbook that appeals to you.

Essentially though nouns and adjectives have

• gender

• "case" (declension), so like "I" (nominative or subject case ) vs "me" (accusative or dative if it's "to" me), also genitive as in "Peter's).

@SnuggleBuggleBoo
Duolingo is good for revision (that is what I use it for), but really bad for learning a new language because of the really bad garmmar background.
I am a native German speaker and I think a course at a Goethe institute or online Babbel is way better.
The declination of articles, nouns and adjectives is not very diferent from other European languages using that system (Spanish, French, Italian)
Perhaps this helps a little:
germanwithlaura.com/declension/
germanforenglishspeakers.com/reference/complete-declension-tables/

@SnuggleBuggleBoo I had this same problem and bought the French version of this book.
Once you get the gist in English it's much easier to apply it to the language you are learning.

amzn.eu/d/inkqULj?tag=mumsnet&ascsubtag=mnforum-21

Don’t forget the Nominative: the subject of the sentence and the form of the word usually found in the dictionary (e.g. THE CAT bit me. JANE bought the dress.)

I think it’s easy for English speakers to understand the difference between the Nominative and Accusative, at least in principle, because we have subject and object pronouns. However, determining whether a noun should be in the Accusative or the Dative is harder because we’re not used to distinguishing between direct objects and indirect objects. But it’s not bad once you get used to it.

I never studied German for long enough to master the grammar, but I think that memorising correct sentences really helps. I used to find it easy to learn lists of vocabulary, but that turned out to be less useful.

Buy a basic grammar book where this is explained. It’s actually mostly logical once you understand it - with a few exceptions!

Learn the lists of which article for which case and gender of by heart. I did this at 16 and still know it now many decades later.
Remember subject nominative, direct object accusative.
Learn main prepositions which cause dative, genitive and those which cause accusative:
Dative: aus, außer, bei, dank, seit, mit, nach, von, zu
Accusative: bis, durch, ohne, für, gegen, ohne, um, wider, entlang
Gen: außerhalb, innerhalb, trotz, während, wegen, anstatt. Note: you will hear native speakers use wegen with dative, that’s fine, they can, but I would learn it correctly as a non native speaker.
Then there are either / or prepositions- for these in general it’s dative rest, accusative motion - so ich bin in der Stadt, but ich gehe ich die Stadt. Note: there are exceptions
Then there are phrases, verbs, that cause either dative or accusative. You will learn these over many years and still make mistakes, but less and less with time - duolingo will never get you to a level of fluency to master this, you will need to spend time immersed in German, ideally where it is spoken, but also reading and using the language.
German is not easy, I speak it fluently, passed the Goethe C2 exam, but still make mistakes. I lived there, use the language all the time, read novels, watch films in German. You will improve, but have to enjoy the journey as there is no end to learning a language.

German has more flexible sentence structure than English. That's why it needs cases, otherwise you would not know who is doing what to whom. In English you can only say "I love you" (meaning I am doing the loving). In German that's "Ich liebe dich". However, in German you can also say "You love I" ("Dich liebe ich") and the I is still doing the loving.

That's why you need cases. They tell you

• who is doing the action (nominative/subject),
• who the action is done to (accusative/direct object).
• and who is the recipient of something (dative/indirect object), often the recipient of the direct object

I am so confused about why you should ever have to change the gender word you use just because the thing is on the receiving end of something.
This is something I wish they had told me in school :)
In English, one way you know the role a word has in a sentence is because of its position in the sentence.
So:
A. The dog bit the man.
B. The man bit the dog.
Sentence B is weird, sentence A is more typical.

In German there's a different system for showing what role each word has.
So in German you can say:
A1. Der Mann biß den Hund.
A2. Den Mann biß der Hund.
These are both the more typical scenario where the dog bites the man.

So both English and German have a way of showing what role each word plays.
The advantage of the English system is that you don't have to change the articles.
The disadvantage of the English system is that the word order is not flexible.

I can point at a man and use A2 above, Den Mann biß der Hund, to show that THAT is the man who was bitten by the dog (note how complicated that is in English)

HTH.

Just to add, you are not changing the gender of the word, the gender stays the same, the case is changing.

Another helpful tip - dative plural= n’s everywhere = “Mit den jungen Kindern” zum Beispiel . Helps to remember until it becomes automatic

For German (unfortunately) you really need to crack the grammer. Otherwise further down the line it will trip you up.
I found the only way I could get to grips was a lot of repetition

It's too complicated to explain in a thread. Have a look at Bitesize:-

www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zg8pycw/revision/1

Learn German with Anja is pretty good too & she has random stuff but also grammar clips.
www.ebay.co.uk/itm/394123857634?hash=item5bc39ccee2:g:87EAAOSwX5FisIfL&amdata=enc%3AAQAHAAAA4O4OaadHF3Yadz4BXCTaPj17x1wzsUgh06bG8vbOUNXM9mbDVZADOhkrTXqk5SPiRS5pHmGLgIpjJ2%2BXehoh6V5A7OoioZynaPioV0uqS9DJp3ZG1DQy%2FjfhA4to1YeFiwfeusDXGC%2F1ZeInar9rM6fo25paVx472F9EiU7oLalUalrTNX7s%2FIZXngj28eaJHfVujDDkLfMJhx%2BzmDiwKJ2MhJf8Dk4jmqan7fEUz0Z2mIudN3ujZj97Xp%2F5BJtxTWPeP9kVk3LlzDB0NymcfQt2CupkcixXmDRQFVBs2r5R%7Ctkp%3ABFBMwN6ds89h
https://www.youtube.com/@LearnGermanwithAnja/featured

This book is old fashioned but good

Sorry it has mixed up my links for some reason!

Sympathies, OP! German grammar is tough. I'm a German, French and Spanish teacher. German causes my students a lot more problems with grammar than the other two languages do, and it's largely cases that are the problem. Especially once you get onto the fact that the endings of adjectives change according to gender and case too!

If you are having trouble getting your head around the whole concept of the cases, it's worth thinking about the fact that it's similar to he/him, or she/her, or I/me in English. When you change from he to him, you're not changing gender. It's still masculine, but the grammatical 'job' that the word is doing in the sentence has changed. You use 'he' when that person is doing the verb, and 'him' when the person is having the verb done to him. So it would sound totally wrong to say "I saw he yesterday." or "Him went to the shops."

Oh and you're not alone not knowing this stuff in English! Most people don't. I learned all I know about grammar through learning modern foreign languages and and Latin! It's been a bit better from my 17yo dd's school cohort onwards, as they all did the dreaded SPaG SATs. Very unpopular, but a relief to secondary school MFL teachers .

This is why I failed German in school...

This is why I failed German in school...

The thing is, understanding the theory isn't hard, as long as you have a patient and competent teacher. But learning all the articles and endings thoroughly and reliably enough to actually be able to produce the right ones at speaking speed is very, very hard.

On the upside, the majority of the time you will be understood perfectly well even if you get them wrong!

This book was recommended to me and I've found it really helpful with my German grammar.

www.amazon.co.uk/Unlocking-German-Paul-Noble-bestselling/dp/0008135851/ref=nodl_?dplnkId=aba97443-85d2-4299-b4e2-2585e1c24acc&tag=mumsnet&ascsubtag=mnforum-21