German adjectives work just like English ones, except that they take on case endings when they come right before a noun:

Der Hund ist groß und braun. The dog is big and brown.

Der große braune Hund bellte mich an. The big brown dog barked at me.

To understand these endings, you need to be familiar with the “hard” endings for nouns from Section II.3. The rule for adjectives before a noun is this: when there’s no hard ending in the noun or article, add it to the adjective. When there is a hard ending in the noun or article, the adjective takes a “soft” ending as follows:

	MASCULINE	FEMININE	NEUTER	PLURAL
Nominative	-e	-e	-e	-en
Accusative	-en	-e	-e	-en
Dative	-en	-en	-en	-en
Genitive	-en	-en	-en	-en

The following tables show how this rule is applied. The hard endings are highlighted in yellow, and the “soft” adjective endings are underlined. With a definite article, the adjective ending is always soft:

TYPE 1: Definite Articles		“The nice man / woman / child / children”
	MASCULINE	FEMININE	NEUTER	PLURAL
Nominative	der nette Mann	die nette Frau	das nette Kind	die nettenKinder
Accusative	den nettenMann	die nette Frau	das nette Kind	die nettenKinder
Dative	dem nettenMann	der nettenFrau	dem nettenKind	den nettenKindern
Genitive	des nettenMannes	der nettenFrau	des nettenKindes	der nettenKinder

  For the indefinite and possessive articles, the adjective endings are the same except for the three places where the article has no hard ending and the adjective has to take it on:

TYPE 2: Indefinite & Possessive Articles			“My little dog / cat / bunny / birds”
	MASCULINE	FEMININE	NEUTER	PLURAL
Nominative	mein kleinerHund	meine kleineKatze	mein kleinesKaninchen	meine kleinenVögel
Accusative	meinen kleinenHund	meine kleineKatze	mein kleinesKaninchen	meine kleinenVögel
Dative	meinem kleinenHund	meiner kleinenKatze	meinemkleinenKaninchen	meinen kleinenVögeln
Genitive	meines kleinenHundes	meiner kleinenKatze	meines kleinenKaninchens	meiner kleinenVögel

And with no article (“the taste of hot coffee”), the adjective always takes on the hard ending, except in the three cases where it’s still there on the noun:

TYPE 3: No Article		“hot coffee / cold milk / fresh bread / warm rolls”
	MASCULINE	FEMININE	NEUTER	PLURAL
Nominative	heißer Kaffee	kalte Milch	frisches Brot	warmeBrötchen
Accusative	heißen Kaffee	kalte Milch	frisches Brot	warmeBrötchen
Dative	heißem Kaffee	kalter Milch	frischem Brot	warmenBrötchen
Genitive	heißen Kaffees	kalter Milch	frischenBrotes	warmerBrötchen