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Sie hat immer sehr elegante Blusen und Hosen.

From answers to this question I understand that for the above sentence the adjective takes the ending -e and not -en because of strong inflection.

What does the ending of the adjective become when it is applied to two nouns that are different genders?

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My chart does not help me in the following example:

She always has a very elegant blouse and belt.

Since blouse is feminine (die Bluse) and belt is masculine (der Gürtel), what does elegant become?

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1 Answer 1

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  1. You are forgetting about case. You need accusative here, and what's more, for the indefinite article. Acc. pl. would be die eleganten Blusen, but since you are not using a definite article elegante Blusen is correct.

  2. It depends. If you insist on the singular, you would have to repeat the adjective:

Sie trägt immer eine sehr elegante Bluse und einen sehr eleganten Gürtel.

A better solution, in my opinion, would be to use the plural here, where you can avoid that:

Sie trägt immer sehr elegante Blusen und Gürtel.

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  • You have confused me now. See the chart I added to my post. I know I am in accusative, but it still says to use -en: Die neuen Buecher, order Die eleganten Hosen in accusative.
    – sci-guy
    Mar 9, 2015 at 5:41
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    There are separate forms for definite and indefinite articles; cf. "der elegante Gürtel" vs. "ein eleganter Gürtel". Sie trägt die eleganten Blusen would be (grammatically) correct, but without the definite article it's just "elegante Blusen".
    – Ingmar
    Mar 9, 2015 at 6:39
  • I find you chart somewhat lacking in that regard, it should perhaps read "neue Bücher" somewhere (i.e., pl. without article).
    – Ingmar
    Mar 9, 2015 at 6:49
  • So 'ohne Artikel' the plural changes endings from en to e :) ok that is easy enough to remember. THANKS!
    – sci-guy
    Mar 9, 2015 at 7:45
  • @renegade05 Not for any grammatical case.
    – c.p.
    Mar 9, 2015 at 21:18

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