Adjectives are words that modify nouns. They are descriptive words like big, small, red, blue, furry, or smooth. In German, adjectives do more than modify nouns,they also describe the function a noun has in the sentence. The endings of the adjectives tell whether the noun is masculine, feminine, or neuter and whether the noun is the subject, the direct or the indirect object,or a possessive noun. Strong versus Weak Like verbs, there are strong and weak endings for adjectives.
Strong endings give information on the noun, like gender, case, and number.
Weak endings are uninformative, giving no useful information on the noun. What determines which ending is used is the first adjective. Although those two rules cover it all, I have included a more comprehensive overview of Adjective Endings to help unravel the mysteries of strong and weak endings. Go back to the top Strong Endings Adjectives that are not preceded by a determiner or that follow an ein-word which has no ending take strong endings . Any adjectives that follow a der word take weak endings.