German Weak Nouns: The N-Declension Made Simple

German weak nouns (schwache Nomen, the n-Deklination) are a closed group of masculine nouns that add -(e)n in every form except the nominative singular. That is seven of the eight slots in the paradigm. The dictionary form is the one exception, which is exactly why learners get it wrong: you meet der Kunde on a flashcard and then write für den Kunde forever.

The good news is that the rule has no exceptions worth arguing about, and the list is short. Around 40 nouns cover almost everything you will say in a normal week, and most of them fall into three visible shapes: masculine nouns ending in -e for people and animals, foreign nouns ending in -ent, -ant, -ist, -oge, -at, and a handful of one-syllable oddities like Herr, Mensch, Bauer, Prinz. Then there is a mixed group of nine that takes -ns in the genitive: Name, Gedanke, Wille, Herz.

The rule in one table

Two details that matter. First, the genitive of a normal weak noun is -(e)n, not -s: des Studenten, never des Students. Second, the plural is identical to the singular oblique forms, so den Studenten is ambiguous between accusative singular and dative plural. Context resolves it; nothing to memorise there.

Der Herr is its own micro-rule: -n in the singular, -en in the plural. Kennst du Herrn Weber? / die Herren.

Which nouns are weak

1. Masculine nouns ending in -e that denote people or animals. This is the largest and most reliable group.

• People: der Junge, der Kollege, der Kunde, der Neffe, der Zeuge, der Experte, der Erbe, der Bote, der Pate, der Riese, der Insasse, der Gefährte, der Sklave, der Gatte
• Animals: der Löwe, der Affe, der Hase, der Rabe, der Bulle, der Ochse, der Falke, der Drache
• Nationalities and groups: der Franzose, der Brite, der Ire, der Schwede, der Türke, der Russe, der Pole, der Chinese, der Jude, der Kollege

Masculine, ending in -e, animate. All three conditions. Der Käse is masculine and ends in -e but is not a person, and it declines normally (des Käses).

2. Foreign masculine nouns for people, stressed on the final syllable. Recognisable by suffix:

• -ent: Student, Präsident, Patient, Assistent, Produzent, Konkurrent
• -ant: Praktikant, Lieferant, Demonstrant, Elefant, Diamant
• -ist: Journalist, Polizist, Tourist, Pianist, Spezialist, Terrorist
• -oge: Biologe, Psychologe, Pädagoge, Soziologe
• -at: Soldat, Kandidat, Demokrat, Diplomat, Automat, Bürokrat
• -graf/-graph, -nom, -soph, -arch, -et, -it: Fotograf, Astronom, Philosoph, Monarch, Prophet, Athlet, Planet, Komet, Bandit, Satellit

Note that Elefant, Diamant, Automat, Planet, Komet, Satellit are not people, yet still weak. The suffix wins over the animacy test in this group.

3. A short list of native nouns with no visible marker. These simply have to be learned one by one:

der Mensch, der Herr, der Bauer, der Nachbar, der Held, der Prinz, der Fürst, der Graf, der Narr, der Hirt, der Christ, der Bär, der Bayer, der Ungar

That is essentially the whole irregular set. Fourteen words. Nachbar and Bauer are drifting: des Nachbarn is standard, des Nachbars is heard and increasingly tolerated, and the dative dem Nachbar is common in speech.

The mixed group: genitive in -ns

Nine nouns take -n like weak nouns everywhere except the genitive singular, where they add -ns. Eight are masculine; das Herz is neuter and also keeps a bare accusative.

Friede and Same now mostly appear in the nominative as Frieden and Samen, which makes them look like ordinary strong nouns. Der Glaube and der Friede have no working plural. And das Herz is the only neuter in the whole n-declension - its accusative stays das Herz, which is why Hand aufs Herz is correct and aufs Herzen is not.

These nine show up constantly in fixed expressions: im Namen von, in Gedanken, aus freien Stücken willen, von ganzem Herzen. Learning the phrase settles the ending better than learning the paradigm - see collocations for that approach.

Look-alikes that are not weak

This is where the overcorrection happens. After a week of den Studenten and dem Kollegen, learners start attaching -n to everything masculine.

The adjectival nouns (der Deutsche, der Beamte, der Angestellte, der Verwandte, der Bekannte) are the sneakiest, because after der they look exactly like weak nouns. The tell is the indefinite article: ein Beamter with -r, but ein Kollege with nothing. If the form changes after ein, it is an adjective in disguise. That pattern is covered separately in the grammar library.

Where it actually costs you marks

• Accusative objects: Ich rufe den Kollegen an. Not den Kollege.
• After prepositions: mit dem Praktikanten, für den Patienten, ohne den Zeugen.
• Letters and addresses: an Herrn Weber, Sehr geehrter Herr Weber (nominative, bare). Getting Herrn right on an envelope is a small, visible signal.
• Bare predicate nouns stay bare: Er ist Student. / Sie arbeitet als Journalist. No ending, because these are nominative.
• Genitive: die Meinung des Experten, der Wille des Volkes vs des Willens.

An honest note on how Germans actually speak: the dative -n is quietly dying in casual speech. You will hear mit dem Kollege, ich hab dem Nachbar Bescheid gesagt, and des Namen on the street. Nobody will misunderstand you if you drop it. But every written text, every Goethe or telc writing task from B1 upward, and every professional email is judged by the standard rule. Treat the spoken shortcut as something you may hear, not something you should produce.

And if all you want right now is the declension table for one specific noun, a dictionary beats any guide: DWDS and Wiktionary both give the full paradigm for free in two seconds. If you want paper drills, the n-Deklination unit in Cornelsen's Grammatik aktiv A1-B1 is about four pages and does the job well. Use those. This page is for the part they do not solve - remembering, six weeks later, that Zeuge is in the club and Käse is not.

Turn the list into recall

The n-declension is not a rule problem, it is a membership problem. You already know what the ending looks like after reading this once. What you do not know, and will not know from reading, is whether Held, Bär and Bote belong to the group when you are mid-sentence.

That is a job for spaced repetition on individual words, not on paradigms. On merke.me weak nouns come with example sentences that show the noun in the accusative or dative rather than the citation form, so what you rehearse is Ich habe den Zeugen befragt, not a bare der Zeuge that hides the whole problem. Look up any of these in vocab to see the forms with native audio, check the grammar library for the neighbouring case rules, and see pricing if you want the full A1-C2 schedule doing the scheduling for you. Twenty minutes of drilling the list beats an hour of rereading the rule.