German words ending in -ie

A noun ending in -ie is die, in both of the ways German pronounces it, with a short list of borrowings that came in otherwise.

die Oma the character this deck pins every die-word on

German says this ending two different ways, and learners often conclude they are two different endings. In the borrowed field names it is stressed and long, so Biologie, Fotografie, Energie and Therapie all land hard on the final syllable. In the older, settled words it is unstressed and breaks into two, so Familie is fa-mi-li-e and Serie is se-ri-e. For gender it makes no difference at all. Both sets are die.

The stressed set is Greek by way of Latin and French. That is why it names disciplines and technologies. English took the same words and wrote them with a y: biology, photography, energy, therapy, industry. If the English word ends that way and names a field, the German one is die.

Knie is not this ending, and the page keeps it separate on purpose. It is a native stem of one syllable where the i and the e spell a single long vowel, and it is das. Filing it as an exception would tell you the rule leaks where it does not.

Where the rule does break here, it breaks on a French borrowing that kept its own spelling rather than on anything systematic. That belongs in the list below, held as vocabulary.

Beyond the deck there are a few more of the same kind, and they are short enough to name now: das Genie, das Selfie, der Hippie and der Zombie. Every one arrived whole from another language instead of being built with the German ending. That is why they sit outside the rule rather than against it, and why this page says almost always rather than always.

Worked examples

die Familie family
die Energie energy
die Batterie battery
die Industrie industry
die Kopie copy
die Linie line

Measured on this deck

95% of the 19 nouns ending in -ie are die

18 nouns ending in -ie in this deck are die and one is not, so the ending runs at 95 percent. The figure covers both pronunciations, stressed and unstressed together.

die Familie die Familien
die Batterie die Batterien
die Biologie
die Drogerie die Drogerien
die Energie die Energien
die Fantasie die Fantasien
die Fotografie die Fotografien
die Galerie die Galerien
die Garantie die Garantien
die Industrie die Industrien
die Kopie die Kopien
die Linie die Linien

and 6 more in the deck. Try the drill.

The ones that break it

One noun in this deck ends in -ie and is not die. Borrowed from French, spelling and all, and there is no pattern behind it to learn instead.

das Portemonnaie die Portemonnaies

Looks like it, is not

This ends in the same two letters without carrying the ending. The i and the e are one long vowel inside a native stem, not the borrowed suffix, so it is not an exception to the rule.

das Knie die Knie

What a card looks like

Familie

Try it

The quiet unstressed kind of -ie shows up in the drill below. The loud kind mostly does not, because it lives in vocabulary further up the syllabus.

Wohnung