Rule for feminine · die

Nouns ending in -ung

-ung → die · 10.6%

The rule, in plain language

Almost every noun ending in -ung is feminine (die) - it's one of German's most productive suffixes, showing up in over 10% of frequent nouns. It's usually built from a verb: die Richtung (direction, from "richten"), die Regierung (government, from "regieren"), or die Unterstützung (support, from "unterstützen"). Watch out, though, for a handful of words that only LOOK like they carry the suffix but aren't verb derivations at all: der Sprung (jump), der Schwung (momentum), and the compound der Vorsprung (head start) are masculine, because "-ung" is simply part of the word's root, not an added suffix. Overall the rule is highly reliable - just 3 exceptions out of 254 words - so you can safely bet on die whenever you see -ung at the end of a noun built from a verb.

In the A1-B1 vocabulary of the Genau course, this rule covers 254 words (10.6%) and has 3 exceptions - all listed below.

Representative examples

The exceptions

These contradict the rule - learn them as-is:

All course words that follow this rule

Rules stick through practice. In the Genau app you train exactly this rule on its own words, with the GENAU! stamp on every correct answer - free, offline, no account. Coming soon to the App Store.