Deutsch — diminutives

German forms diminutives with the suffixes -chen and -lein. Both make the noun neuter (das) regardless of its original gender and usually add an Umlaut to the stem vowel: Hund → Hündchen, Frau → Fräulein.

How it works

✓ Rule

Add -chen (or -lein) to the noun stem; the article always becomes neuter das and a, o, u become ä, ö, ü. So der Hund → das Hündchen, der Baum → das Bäumchen, die Katze → das Kätzchen. A final -e is dropped before the suffix (Katze → Kätzchen).

Examples

Base noun and its diminutive
Base noun	Diminutive (das)
der Hund	das Hündchen
die Katze	das Kätzchen
der Baum	das Bäumchen
die Frau	das Fräulein
der Bruder	das Brüderlein
das Buch	das Büchlein
die Stadt	das Städtchen
der Vogel	das Vögelchen

Good to know

⚠ Note

Not every vowel takes an Umlaut, and some words have fixed forms: das Mädchen (from Magd) and das Fräulein are always neuter even though they refer to people. -lein sounds more literary or poetic; -chen is the everyday choice. In the south, the dialect suffix -le/-erl/-i often replaces both.