I am trying to figure out adjective endings in German. I usually refer to this summary and it has been working perfectly until now. Can someone tell me if there is anything wrong with it, though? Because something just does not work.
I have this question: What is the grammatical explanation to zum ersten Mal?
I simply cannot explain why zum ersten Mal is like this. I would have thought, following my summary, that since zu requires dative, since the noun is Mal (das Mal), the adjective that follows would have to end with an em. But that is not the case! Instead I see a -en ending there and I really really cannot explain why!
I actually thought like this:
- Mal is das Mal;
- zu + dative = zum
- ending of the following adjective should be -em (see the third column in my summary) → erstem
Taking all together: zum erstem Mal.