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The world of sentences
A sentence is like the theatre A sentence is like the theatre. Every member of a sentence plays a different role. So who are the actors and what roles do they play?
The Subject - Nominativ Let me introduce the actors: The Subject - Nominativ The Verb The Object - Accusativ
Let’s take a sentence like: Ich habe einen Hund I have a dog
= Ich Subject (Nominativ) The Subject (Nominativ) is like ‘actionman’. It is always doing the action
habe = Verb The Verb is the action itself,e.g. ‘playing’ or in our case ‘having’.
= einen Hund Object (Accusativ) Subject The OBJECT is the victim of the subject’s action. The SUBJECT is always doing something to the OBJECT!!!! Object
Now look what happens to the word ‘a’ in the following two sentences.
Rover ist ein Hund Ich habe einen Hund Subj. Verb Subj. Subj. Verb Obj. Ich habe einen Hund
Have you noticed…..? ‘ein Hund’ in sentence 1 changes to ‘einen Hund’ in sentence 2. THIS IS BECAUSE ‘einen Hund‘ IS THE OBJECT (Accusativ) OF THE SENTENCE!!!!
This change only happens to masculine (blue) nouns The good news…….. This change only happens to masculine (blue) nouns
Ich habe einen Hund eine Katze ein Kaninchen -- Haustiere Subj. Verb Obj. Ich habe einen Hund eine Katze ein Kaninchen -- Haustiere
Now try and find out which role the English words play: Subj. Verb Obj. my mother a hamster has
Verb Obj. Subj. my mother has a hamster
Subj. Verb Obj. Michael his friend meets
Verb Obj. Subj. Michael meets his friend
Now try the same with a German sentence: Subj. Verb Obj. einen Fisch mein Bruder hat
Subj. Verb Obj. Mein Bruder hat einen Fisch
Verb Obj. Subj. hast du Haustiere
Verb Obj. Subj. hast Haustiere Du
Remember….. After the verb ‘haben’ you always need an OBJECT. If the OBJECT is masculine ‘ein’ becomes ‘einen’!
Subj. Verb Obj. Ich habe einen Hund einen Hamster einen Wellensittich einen Fisch eine Maus eine Katze eine Schildkröte ein Kaninchen ein Pferd ein Meerschweinchen -- Haustiere