Free German Adjective Endings Quiz
This German adjective endings quiz gives you one short everyday sentence at a time, with a gap where the ending goes: Ich kaufe ein neu__ Auto. Tap one of five endings (-e, -en, -er, -es, -em) or press 1 to 5 on a keyboard, and the quiz shows the phrase with the right ending and the reason for it. You choose the ending types and the cases, and the quiz works through every combination you picked in turn. When you stop, you see your score and can practice only the sentences you missed. It's free and needs no signup.
How the German adjective endings quiz works
You make three choices before you start. The first is which endings to drill: after der, dieser or jeder (the weak endings), after ein, kein or mein (the mixed endings), or with no article (the strong endings). The second is the cases, any of the four. The third is what you fill in. You can fill in only the adjective's ending, with five buttons for -e, -en, -er, -es and -em, or keys 1 to 5. Or you can type the article's ending and the adjective's together: Ich helfe d__ alt__ Mann.
Above each sentence, a line can show the case, the noun's gender and its meaning: Accusative · das Auto · car. Turn it off when you want to work out the case and the gender from the sentence alone.
A running score stays on screen while you work.
A sentence for every cell of the tables
Every question is a short everyday sentence built for one cell of the tables: Ich kaufe ein neu__ Auto. Was hältst du von kalt__ Wasser? Wegen stark__ Regens bleiben wir zu Hause. The tables have 48 cells: three ending types, four cases, and masculine, feminine, neuter and plural.
Each cell you chose comes up in turn before any cell comes up again. So a quiz on all 48 covers them evenly, and the feminine dative gets as many turns as the masculine nominative. The same noun won't come back within a few questions either.
The sentences are made from 126 everyday nouns, 47 adjectives and 68 sentence frames, which gives more than 60,000 different sentences. Every pairing of noun, adjective and frame was reviewed for natural German, and every ending comes from the same engine as the tables.
What you see after each answer
After every answer, the quiz shows the phrase with the right endings and the reason for them. The reason depends on the word in front of the adjective:
- “den already shows the masculine accusative, so the adjective takes -en.”
- “ein has no ending here, so the adjective shows the masculine nominative itself: -er, as in der.”
- “No article, so the adjective takes the ending the article would have: dem → -em.”
Those three reasons are the system in short. An article with an ending of its own leaves the adjective -e or -en. Where ein, kein or mein has no ending, the adjective shows the gender and case itself. With no article at all, the adjective takes the article's ending. The German adjective endings chart sets this out as a three-question flowchart, with the one exception in the genitive.
German adjective endings practice, one table at a time
The three ending types match the three tables, so you can learn one table before you mix them. Start with the endings after der, dieser and jeder, where every ending is -e or -en. Add the endings after ein, kein and mein next. They differ from the first table in only three cells: der alte Mann, but ein alter Mann, and das alte Haus, but ein altes Haus, in the nominative and the accusative. So once you know one table, you know most of the other.
Then add the endings with no article, which copy the article's ending: kalter Kaffee, from der. The cases can come in the same way. Take the nominative and the accusative first, then add the dative. The strong genitive (wegen stark__ Regens) is mostly found in writing, so it can wait until the rest is steady.
Practice the sentences you missed
Press Stop at any point to see your score and the sentences you got wrong, each with the right endings and what you wrote. Practice my mistakes then runs only those sentences again, so the cells you keep missing get the extra turns. The quiz is free, with no signup and no account.
A quiz on screen, worksheets on paper
The quiz is for practice on screen, one sentence at a time. For a class, the German adjective endings worksheets print sentences from the same drill, a new one on every line, with an answer key, plus the tables to fill in and a one-page chart. To see why each ending is what it is, read the German adjective endings chart. And since the ending depends on the noun's gender, start with the der die das quiz if der, die or das is still a guess.
Frequently asked questions
Is this German adjective endings quiz free?
Yes. There's no signup and no account.
Which endings does the quiz cover?
It covers all 48 cells: the weak endings after der, dieser and jeder, the mixed endings after ein, kein and mein, and the strong endings with no article. Each type comes in four cases, for masculine, feminine and neuter nouns and the plural. Pick any of them, and each cell you chose comes up in turn.
Can I answer with the keyboard?
Yes. When you fill in the adjective's ending, keys 1 to 5 stand for -e, -en, -er, -es and -em. When you fill in the article's ending as well, you type both.
What does the line above each sentence show?
The case, the noun with its article and the noun's meaning in English, such as Accusative · das Auto · car. You can turn it off.
How many different sentences are there?
There are more than 60,000. They're built from 126 everyday nouns, 47 adjectives and 68 sentence frames, and every pairing of noun, adjective and frame was reviewed for natural German. The same noun won't come back within a few questions.
Why is it der alte Mann but ein alter Mann?
Der already shows that Mann is masculine and in the nominative, so the adjective needs only -e. Ein has no ending of its own there, so the adjective shows it instead, with -er, the ending of der. The neuter works the same way in the nominative and the accusative: das alte Haus, but ein altes Haus. Those are the only three cells where the endings after der and after ein differ.
Which ending should I guess if I don't know?
Guess -en. It's the ending in 26 of the 48 cells, and after an article it's the ending in every dative, every genitive and every plural.
Can I practice only the sentences I got wrong?
Yes. Press Stop, and Practice my mistakes runs only the sentences you missed.
Licenses and credits
Noun genders and endings come from English Wiktionary through kaikki.org (CC BY-SA 4.0). The sentences are written for NexaProva.