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A question I’m hoping someone can help out with! In a sentence like this:

bei der Informierung unserer Kunden, Planung und Umsetzung von Aktivitäten, Entwicklung von Werbematerialien …

there is a whole list of nouns to which “bei der” refers. Ok, this sentence isn’t the best example as all the nouns are feminine anyway. But if there were several nouns of different genders, would “bei der” just have to agree with the first? I considered whether “bei den” could be used, as “bei” is really referring to several things, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen this. I’ve run into this problem quite often when writing out German exercises.

For example, if I wanted to write something like

Ich hatte genug von meinem Brüder, Schwester und Vetter

without repeating "mein" three times.

( original sentence from germanpod101 )

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The article or adjective of two or more nouns may be written only once if all nouns agree in number and gender:

Sie beschäftigt sich mit französischer Literatur und Geschichte.

Meine Bücher und Bilder bereiten mir Freude.

Die Kraft und Tiefe des Gedankens.

This is also possible if the gender is different but the difference is not expressed:

mit großem Fleiß (masculine) und Geschick (neuter)

die Versorgung des Hauses (neuter) und Gartens (masculine)

meine Brüder (masculine) und Schwestern (feminine)

If the nouns differ in number or visibly in gender, the article and adjective cannot be left out:

in einem gestreiften Hemd und einer grünen Hose
in einem gestreiften Hemd und grünen Hose

die Reinigung der Gartenwege, der Garageneinfahrt und der Terrasse
die Reinigung der Gartenwege, Garageneinfahrt und Terrasse

(examples taken from Duden – Richtiges und gutes Deutsch)

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  • Maybe you could add in that in the first example of OP it would be advisable to actually repeat the articles because the help with the parsing "Planung und Umsetzung von Aktivitäten, Entwicklung". Up to here, this could be followed by "und" thus creating one constituent rather than 2. A "der" before "Entwickelung would avoid that.
    – Emanuel
    Jan 2, 2015 at 20:10

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