In the German language there are four cases: nominative, genitive, dative and accusative. In this lesson we'll go deeper into the genitive case.

The genitive case describes the possessor of something else in the sentence.

	Definite	Indefinite
Masculine	die Hand des Mannes the hand of the man der Geschmack des Kaffees the taste of the coffee	die Hand eines Mannes the hand of a man der Geschmack eines Kaffees the taste of a coffee
Feminine	die Hand der Frau the hand of the woman	die Hand einer Frau the hand of a woman
Neuter	die Hand des Kindes the hand of the child das Leiden des Lebens the suffering of life	die Hand eines Kindes the hand of a child das Leiden eines Lebens the suffering of a life
Plural	die Hände der Kinder the hands of the children	-

Note that in the genitive case, the masculine and neuter forms behave the same, and the plural form behaves the same as the feminine form.

In the genitive case, masculine and neuter nouns receive -es at the end, if they consist of a single syllable and don't end in an -e. Masculine and neuter nouns consisting of multiple syllables, or ending in an -e, only receive an -s at the end.

For the feminine and the plural forms, the noun is the same as in the nominative form.

Breakdown of das Leiden des Lebens