• Adjectives can act like nouns. These are called adjectival nouns.

• They are useful because you can refer to people or things without repeating a full noun,

  • eg die Kleine spielt im Park – the little girl is playing in the park. We don’t need to say girl because this is implied with die Kleine.

• The article changes depending on gender, number and case (nominative or accusative)

Use these steps to form an adjective from a noun in the nominative case, where the noun is the subject of the sentence:

• Find the gender of the noun and start with the article der, die, das or die.

• Capitalise the noun

• Add the endings according to the nominative case (definite articles):

• Masculine – e - der Alte

• Feminine – e - die Kleine

• Neuter – e - das Gute

• Plural – en - die Reichen

For indefinite articles:

• Masculine – er - ein Alter
• Feminine – e - eine Kleine
• Neuter – es - ein Gutes

After the words viel, a lot of, wenig, a little, etwas, something which describe more general things, the adjectival noun takes the neuter ending and with alles, all, the noun takes the plural ending:

Etwas Besonderes – something special

Viel Neues – a lot of new (things)

Alles Gute – all the good (things)

Remember:

The nouns in brackets are not needed once the adjectives have been made into nouns.

What are the following adjectival nouns?

Use the accusative case when the adjectival noun is the direct object of the sentence. Change the articles and endings as follows:

Definite article (the)

Masculine: den Alten Ich sehe den Alten

I see the old man

Feminine: die Kleine Ich kenne die Kleine

I know the little girl

Neuter: das Gute Ich sehe das Gute in allem

I see the good in all

Plural: die Reichen Viele Menschen kritisieren die Reichen

Many people criticise the rich

Indefinite Article (a)

Masculine: einen Alten Ich sehe einen Alten im Park,

I see an old man in the park

Feminine: eine Kleine Er kennt eine Kleine aus der Schule

He knows a little girl from school.

Neuter: ein Gutes. Ich habe ein Neues gekauft

I bought a new one

Fill in the missing gaps with the correct adjectival noun: