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Questions & Answers about Der Film ist ernst.
Why does Film use der and not die or das?
In German, every noun has a grammatical gender: masculine, feminine, or neuter.
- Film is grammatically masculine, so it takes the article der in the nominative singular.
- You just have to learn the gender with the word: der Film (the film/movie), die Stadt (the city), das Buch (the book).
In the plural, the article would change: die Filme (the films/movies).
Why is Film capitalized?
All nouns in German are capitalized, regardless of their position in the sentence.
- Der Film ist ernst. – Film is a noun → capitalized.
- Der alte Film ist ernst. – Film is still a noun → capitalized.
Adjectives and verbs are not capitalized (unless they start the sentence or are turned into nouns), so ernst stays lowercase here.
Why doesn’t ernst have an ending, like ernster or ernste?