Both der/das/die and den mean ‘the’ but when are they supposed to be used. Are they interchangeable?
I recently came across a statement on duolingo : Mia, der Stuhl ist da druben, Warum brauchst du den Stuhl.
Since it is translated as ‘the’ in both cases why is Mia, den Stuhl ist da druben, Warum brauchst du der Stuhl wrong
You use them in different cases (“Fälle” in german).
“der”, “die” and “das” are the default ones you use in the Nominativ case.
In the Akkusativ case you use “den, die, das” instead, so there’s only a difference for “der”/“den”, which makes it harder to spot.
Generally, if you just talk about a thing, that’s usually Nominativ. But if there’s a verb about doing something to the thing, “brauchen” in this case, it’s Akkusativ.
There’s also the Dativ case for when something is done to a thing/person, but it’s harder to make a general rule for that.
And, for completeness, there’s also Genitiv. But don’t bother with that for now. It’s barely used anymore so you’ll be fine without it.
Edit: Mixed up adjective and verb, now it’s fixed.
Thank you for the very informative answer.
Wait, is it really true that Genitiv case isn’t used much? What would you do to show possession? Is it just using something like in English (the chair’s leg / der Stuhls Bein vs. the leg of the chair / das Bein des Stuhles). Is it just that it’s a bit formal sounding?
Apologies if any of that is wrong, I haven’t used German in forever, please correct me.
Yes, it’s basically dead for casual talking, we just use it when we want to sound formal.
In your example, we’d say “Stuhlbein” or “Das Bein von dem Stuhl”. I don’t know if the latter is correct grammar, but we use it all the time.
There’s a little saying about Genitiv being replaced by Dativ: “Genitiv ins Wasser, weils Dativ ist”
Interesting. Thank you!
Adding to the other comment, there’s a reasonably well known book series called:
Der Dativ ist dem Genetiv sein Tod. [The dative is the death of the genitive].
Language changes and the genitive is slowly dying out. Instead of saying “das Bein des Stuhls” you’d say “das Bein vom Stuhl” or perhaps simply “das Stuhlbein”.
There’s also “des Stuhles Bein” as you mentioned but this’ll make you sound like you’re from the 19th century.