Ordering wine

Why is it when ordering half dry or dry wine they sometimes say "halbtrochen" and sometimes trocker, and sometimes and trochenen....??? Why the different endings on the adjective trochen?

Hi Kris S1, The adjectives change depending on the gender of the word you use them with. The grammar chapters 6.1-6.4 give more info on cases. 'Das ist ein Glas trockener Weisswein' is the nominative case. 'trockener' refers to 'Weisswein' which is male gender. If "trocken" would describe a beer (but there is no such thing) the sentense would be:'Das ist ein trockenes Bier' trockenes because 'Bier' is neutral gender. 'Halbtrocken' means 'half dry' and can be grammatically treated the same way as 'trocken'. Was darf es sein or was möchtest du trinken? You use the accusative form ending -en for trocken. 'Einen trockenen Weisswein'. I hope I could help you. Gruss Paul