Dersalbe

I found the lesson dealing with “this/hat/the same pretty difficult.  This and that seem pretty straightforward, but ”dersalbe" seemed almost impossible to use without a lot of thinking.  I am not sure why it is so difficult.  any suggestions about learning it?

Hallo JosephP50! 

Derselbe can be a little tricky because it looks different depending on gender and case whereas in English, it does not change. My suggestion would be to take a step-by-step approach. Firstly, figure out which definite article is needed (der, die or das) depending on the noun that follows. Then add the appropriate adjective ending (-selbe portion) which depends on the gender and case. 

For example:

“Er nimmt immer denselben Parkplatz.” - “He always takes the same parking space.”

In this example, der Parkplatz is masculine while the verb nehmen is asking for the accusative which means that der becomes den and the -selbe portion also needs to change to match the gender (masculine) and case (accusative). When you look up the table in lesson 10.8, you'll see that the right form for this combination is denselben. 

I hope this clears things up a bit! 

If you have any further questions, don't hestitate to ask :)

Viele Grüße

Julia