The nominative case (Nominativ): the subject, its articles and wer/was

Rule

The nominative is the case of the subject — the person or thing that does the action or is being described. The test question is Wer? (who?) for people and Was? (what?) for things, and you ask it in front of the conjugated verb: Wer wartet draußen? → ein Kollege.

Three things follow from that:

• It is the basic form. Dictionaries, vocabulary lists and the article you memorise (der Tisch, das Buch, die Lampe) are all nominative. Every other case is a change to this form.
• The subject controls the verb. Singular subject, singular ending; plural subject, plural ending: Das Kind spielt / Die Kinder spielen.
• Position does not decide the case. German puts the conjugated verb in second place, so the subject often comes after it: Heute kocht mein Vater. It is still the nominative.

A second nominative appears after four linking verbs: sein, werden, bleiben, heißen. They do not take an object, they equate two things, so both sides stay nominative: Er ist ein guter Lehrer, Sie wird Ärztin, Anna bleibt meine beste Freundin.

Comparing the nominative with the accusative is easy, because among articles and determiners only the masculine changes: der → den, ein → einen, kein → keinen, mein → meinen. Neuter, feminine and plural are identical in both cases, so a masculine word — or the question wer?/wen? — is what tells you which case a sentence is in. Personal pronouns behave differently: they have their own object forms in nearly every person (ich → mich, er → ihn, wir → uns), which belong to the accusative chapter, just like the dative and the genitive have chapters of their own.

Examples

• Der Zug fährt um acht Uhr ab. — The train leaves at eight o'clock.
• Meine Schwester wohnt in Berlin. — My sister lives in Berlin.
• Heute kocht mein Vater. — Today my father is cooking.
• Wer wartet draußen? — Ein Kollege von mir. — Who is waiting outside? — A colleague of mine.
• Das Kind und die Eltern kommen später. — The child and the parents are coming later.
• Er ist mein bester Freund. — He is my best friend.
• Sie wird Ärztin. — She is going to be a doctor.
• Anna bleibt meine beste Freundin. — Anna remains my best friend.
• Die Kinder spielen im Garten, ein Hund schläft auf der Terrasse. — The children are playing in the garden, a dog is sleeping on the terrace.
• Meine Lehrerin heißt Frau Weber. — My teacher's name is Frau Weber.

Quick table

Common mistakes

• ❌ Den Zug fährt um acht Uhr ab. → ✅ Der Zug fährt um acht Uhr ab. — the doer of the action is the subject and takes the nominative; den is the masculine accusative.
• ❌ Er ist einen guten Lehrer. → ✅ Er ist ein guter Lehrer. — after sein the second noun is a nominative, not an object.
• ❌ Wen hat angerufen? → ✅ Wer hat angerufen? — wer asks for the subject, wen for the accusative object.
• ❌ Die Kinder spielt im Garten. → ✅ Die Kinder spielen im Garten. — the verb ending follows the nominative subject: plural subject, plural verb.
• ❌ Heute mein Vater kocht. → ✅ Heute kocht mein Vater. — the conjugated verb keeps second position; the subject moves behind it and stays nominative.

Related

Learn the nominative together with the accusative — the pair covers almost every A1 sentence — and check the article chapters if der/das/die still feel arbitrary.