Breakdown of Der Fleißige bleibt im Büro und arbeitet weiter.
Questions & Answers about Der Fleißige bleibt im Büro und arbeitet weiter.
Der Fleißige literally means “the hard-working one” or “the diligent one”.
- fleißig = hard-working / diligent (adjective)
- When an adjective is turned into a noun referring to a person, German:
- capitalizes it: Fleißige
- adds an article: der
- gives it an ending: -e → Fleißige
So Der Fleißige doesn’t name a specific noun like Mann or Mitarbeiter; it stands in for “the hard-working person (male)” and is understood from context. This is called a nominalized adjective (substantiviertes Adjektiv).
Two reasons:
Capitalization
In German, all nouns are capitalized. When an adjective is used as a noun (nominalized), it is treated like a noun and is capitalized:- fleißig (adjective in normal use)
- der Fleißige (nominalized adjective → noun)
Ending -e
After the definite article der, the adjective (here: now acting as a noun) takes the weak ending -e in nominative singular masculine:- der fleißige Mann
→ dropping Mann but keeping the form:
- der fleißige Mann