Zodiac Signs in German: The Der/Die Mistake Almost Everyone Makes

Say “der Waage” to a German speaker and you’ll get a small wince — Libra is die Waage, and getting the article wrong is the single most common mistake learners make with the zodiac signs in German. German nouns carry grammatical gender, so there’s no such thing as knowing Waage without also knowing it takes die, not der.

Two quick things before the list, since both trip people up in search:

• “Zodiac signs in German” (the language) is not the same question as “zodiac signs in Germany” (the country). This guide covers the German words for the signs — der Widder, die Waage, and so on — not astrology as practiced in Germany.
• “Zodiac signs in German and English” — if you want both languages side by side, the table below already has an English column, so you don’t need a separate source.

So instead of organising this list Aries-to-Pisces, it’s organised by gender — eight signs are masculine, two are feminine, and two are plural. That’s the order that actually helps you memorise it, and it’s the order most guides skip.

All 12 Zodiac Signs in German

This table already gives you the zodiac signs in German and English side by side — English name, German name, article, and literal meaning in one place. Tap “Listen” next to any sign to hear how it’s actually pronounced.

Sternzeichen or Tierkreiszeichen?

Both words exist and they aren’t quite interchangeable. Sternzeichen (“star sign”) is what people actually say — in conversation, in magazine horoscopes, on dating profiles. Tierkreiszeichen (“animal-circle sign”) is the technical, encyclopaedic term.

If you’re writing for a German audience, use Sternzeichen. If you’re translating something formal or astronomical, Tierkreiszeichen is the safer register — and it’s also by far the less common of the two in everyday search.

Do Germans Have Animal Zodiac Signs?

No. Tierkreiszeichen translates literally as “animal-circle sign,” which sometimes leads people searching for “German zodiac animals” to expect a Chinese-style, year-based animal zodiac (like the rat, ox, tiger… cycle). Germany doesn’t have a separate animal-year system — Tierkreis just refers to the same twelve Western signs covered in this article, several of which (Widder the ram, Stier the bull, Löwe the lion) happen to be animals themselves.

The Eight Masculine German Zodiac Signs (der)

Aries in German: der Widder 🔊 Listen

A ram. The word is unrelated to English “ram” but related, distantly, to English “wether.” German kept the animal and left the Latin to the astronomers. See the Aries profile.

Taurus in German: der Stier 🔊 Listen

A bull, and the same word as English “steer” — though English narrowed its version to mean a castrated animal while German kept the intact bull. Note the pronunciation: German st- at the start of a word becomes “sht.” Stier is “SHTEER,” never “STEER.” This trips up almost every English speaker. More in the Taurus profile.

Cancer in German: der Krebs 🔊 Listen

German went with a crab rather than the crayfish its northern neighbours chose. Krebs also means cancer the disease, exactly as in English — an overlap that’s much more present in German than in the Danish or Swedish equivalents. Read the Cancer profile.

Leo in German: der Löwe 🔊 Listen

From Latin leo, one of the very few borrowings in the German list. The final -e is pronounced, as a soft “uh”: “LÖ-vuh,” two syllables. See the Leo profile.

Scorpio in German: der Skorpion 🔊 Listen

A loanword, for the usual reason: no German-speaking region has native scorpions worth naming. Stress falls on the last syllable, “skor-pee-OHN,” which is unusual for German and a reliable marker of a borrowed word. See the Scorpio profile.

Sagittarius in German: der Schütze 🔊 Listen

A shooter or marksman, from schießen, “to shoot.” No bow in the name at all. The word has a second life in German football commentary, where a Torschütze is a goalscorer. See the Sagittarius profile.

Capricorn in German: der Steinbock 🔊 Listen

Stein (stone) plus Bock (buck): the alpine ibex, an animal that actually lives in the German-speaking Alps and nearly went extinct there in the nineteenth century. The Latin sea-goat, half goat and half fish, doesn’t survive in the German name. Read the Capricorn profile.

Aquarius in German: der Wassermann 🔊 Listen

“Water man.” In German folklore a Wassermann is also a water spirit — a merman that lures people into rivers — so the word carries a faint mythological shadow that the plain Latin Aquarius doesn’t. See the Aquarius profile.

The Two Feminine German Star Signs (die)

Virgo in German: die Jungfrau 🔊 Listen

Literally “young woman,” covering both maiden and virgin depending on context. Every German speaker also knows it as a mountain: the Jungfrau in the Bernese Alps is one of the most photographed peaks in Switzerland. More in the Virgo profile.

Libra in German: die Waage 🔊 Listen

A set of scales, and also the ordinary word for any weighing device, including the one in your bathroom. Two syllables — “VAH-guh” — with a long double a. The Libra profile covers the sign.

The Two Plural German Signs (die)

These two behave differently from the rest, and not only in their article — because they’re plural, a German speaker describing themselves uses a singular form that never appears in the sign name itself.

Gemini in German: die Zwillinge 🔊 Listen

The sign is die Zwillinge, twins. But one person is ein Zwilling: “Ich bin Zwilling.” Three syllables, and the z is a “ts” sound — “TSVIL-ing-uh.” The Gemini profile has more.

Pisces in German: die Fische 🔊 Listen

The sign is die Fische, fishes. One person is ein Fisch: “Ich bin Fisch.” See the Pisces profile.

The Der/Die Mistake: How Germans Actually State Their Sign

Here’s the mistake almost every learner makes: in English you say “I’m a Leo,” with an article. German normally drops it entirely — and dropping the article is the idiomatic choice, the opposite of the English instinct.

• Ich bin Löwe. — I’m a Leo. (Most idiomatic.)

• Ich bin ein Löwe. — Also heard, also correct, slightly more emphatic.

• Mein Sternzeichen ist Löwe. — My star sign is Leo.

• Was ist dein Sternzeichen? — What’s your star sign?

• Ich bin im Zeichen des Steinbocks geboren. — I was born under the sign of Capricorn.

• Typisch Skorpion! — Typical Scorpio!

Notice that last construction. Des Steinbocks is genitive, and most masculine signs add an -s there: des Widders, des Stiers, des Löwen (this one takes -n). Feminine signs don’t change: der Waage, der Jungfrau.

So the mistake isn’t just “der vs. die” — it’s carrying the English habit of always using an article into a language where dropping it is the more natural move.

The Rest of the German Astrology Vocabulary

One warning on that last row: Wasserzeichen means “water sign” in astrology, but in every other context it means a watermark — the thing in a banknote. German speakers read it correctly from context; a machine translation won’t.

Germany, Austria and Switzerland

All twelve names are identical across the three main German-speaking countries. There’s no Austrian or Swiss variant to worry about, which makes German unusually easy to localise compared with Portuguese or Norwegian.

Horoskop columns run in Bild, in the free commuter papers, and in every women’s weekly from Brigitte down. German astrology writing sits somewhere between the British wink and the earnestness you find in Latin America — drier than Brazil, warmer than Denmark.

Frequently Asked Questions

Zodiac Signs in German and Its Neighbouring Languages

German and Dutch are close relatives and their sign lists show it — see the zodiac signs in Dutch, where Steenbok and Waterman are nearly identical but Cancer becomes a lobster. The Scandinavian languages translated the same images again with their own vocabulary: Swedish, Danish and Norwegian. For the opposite approach entirely, the zodiac signs in Italian barely moved from the Latin, and the zodiac signs in French follow a similar Latin-rooted pattern with their own grammatical gender quirks.

Looking further afield, the same twelve signs take very different shapes in Russian, Hindi, Urdu, Arabic, Vietnamese, Latin, and Spanish and English side by side.

All languages: zodiac signs in different languages.