das Hobby
hobby
Das Hobby is a loanword taken straight from English, and it is neuter, so it takes das. The plural is die Hobbys, spelled with a y rather than the English -ies. German applies its own rule to borrowed words here: foreign nouns usually form the plural with a plain -s, so Hobbies is a spelling mistake in German even though it looks right to an English reader.
The word is used exactly as in English. Was sind deine Hobbys? means "what are your hobbies?" and is one of the standard questions in a beginner German conversation class. To answer, German usually pairs the hobby with a verb: mein Hobby ist Lesen (my hobby is reading), where the verb lesen is capitalized because it works as a noun in that position.
A more formal alternative is die Freizeitbeschäftigung (leisure activity), built from die Freizeit (free time). It appears in written German and on official forms but sounds heavy in conversation, so Hobby is what people actually say.
A useful related phrase is in meiner Freizeit (in my free time), which is how most answers to this question begin: in meiner Freizeit spiele ich Gitarre (in my free time I play guitar).
Pronunciation: Hobby has two syllables, [ˈhɔbi], with the stress on the first. The o is short and open, closer to the vowel in British English "hot" than to a long "oh".
Article / Gender
English
hobby
Singular
das Hobby
Plural
die Hobbys
das Hobby appears in the following vocabulary collections:
Mein Hobby ist Lesen.
My hobby is reading.
Simple copula sentence with 'sein'.
Ich habe ein neues Hobby.
I have a new hobby.
Accusative object after 'haben'.
Ist das Hobby interessant?
Is the hobby interesting?
Yes/no question: verb first.
- What does Hobby mean in German?
- Hobby means the same thing in German as in English: a leisure activity you do for enjoyment. It is a neuter noun and takes das.
- What is the plural of Hobby?
- The plural is die Hobbys, with a y and a plain -s. The English-style spelling Hobbies is incorrect in German, because German forms plurals of borrowed words with -s.
- Is Hobby masculine, feminine, or neuter?
- Hobby is neuter and takes das. Many English loanwords in German are neuter, including das Baby, das Team, and das Handy.
- How do you ask about hobbies in German?
- Ask was sind deine Hobbys? informally, or was machen Sie in Ihrer Freizeit? (what do you do in your free time?) in a formal setting.
- How do you say "my hobby is reading" in German?
- Say mein Hobby ist Lesen. The verb lesen is capitalized here because it is functioning as a noun, which German does with any infinitive used this way.