- Forum >
- Topic: German >
- "Ich bin im weißen Haus!"
35 Comments
611
Would there be any differences in how this is written if we were talking about the U.S. President's residence, the White House? I assume the proper noun would follow the same rules auf Deutsch as in English ("Weißen Haus"), but would you then explicitly include the "the"?
Weißes Haus, when by itself, according to Wikipedia. However, it will be declined depending on it's role in a sentence. So it's not trivial.
- 611
Gute Idee: zu sehen den Artikel im deutsches Wikipedia. "Das Weiße Haus", "im Weißen Haus", etc. Mehr beugen. He!
I had a bit difficulty understanding why weiß wasn't weißem (strong neuter dative) here and was weißen (weak/mixed neuter dative)... then I guess I realized, "im" would indicate a definite article, just wasn't really clear... and the English translation would have a definite article anyway. Still a bit confusing though. XD
You're right. It's important to remember that im=in dem, am=an dem, zum=zu dem and zur=zu der. So a following adjective uses the endings that go with the definite article (weak adjective endings).
So whenever "im" appears, we do the dative of the next word; like "weiben" for instance?
yep. "In" can give the following noun the dative case (inside) or accusative (into). but because "im" is short for "in dem" it must be giving the dative case to the noun, and because we have one of the der/die/das/den/dem family of articles any following adjectives will end in -en. Same rule can be applied to am zum und zur.
If you're an American, the NSA tracks everything...they're probably watching me right now.
I didn't mean to exclude the citizens of other countries, I was just saying that, here in America, they know.
im having a bit of trouble with dative case. Why is it in dem and not in das?
Neuter nouns always take "dem" in the dative case.
This helped me understand: http://german.about.com/library/blcase_dat.htm
Could this phrase mean "I am in a white house!" as in a regular, non-specific house that just happens to be white? Or should it be phrased differently in that case?
- 611
Nein. Es kann nicht.
" . . . in a white house," würde "in einem weißes Haus" sein.
im is a contraction of "in dem" (in the).
Tip: it would sound more natural if you said, Nein, kann es nicht.
(Which looks as if it violates verb-second word order; I suppose it's short for something like Nein, das kann es nicht.)
Your answer itself is spot-on.
I still don't really see why the definite article and adjective ending don't agree if they are both contingent on the gender of the same noun.
- 611
It's in the Dative case.
[edited] See http://german.about.com/library/weekly/aa033098.htm , but note that the "ALWAYS" applies only when considering nouns with an article & an adjective. As duoderSie notes below, when there is no article, the adjective takes an ending based on its gender & number:
"Many German learners find the DATIVE (indirect object) case to be intimidating, but when it comes to adjective endings in the dative, it couldn't be more simple. The ending is ALWAYS -en! That's it! And this simple rule applies to adjectives used with either the definite or indefinte articles (and ein-words)."
This is not true. It is true about 95% of the time though.
When the noun has no pronoun then the adjective endings are -em (masc and neuter) and -r (fem). Example: "it is in boiling water" "es ist in kochendem Wasser" or "es liegt in kochendem Wasser"
In any case it is not the using the dative case that is "intimidating" but knowing when to use it: which preposition, is it a wo/wohin preposition, which verb etc.
in plural dative it is -en with or without article. Infact for plural dative most Nouns also take an N if it doesn#t already have one. Eg the green Tree = der Baum Nom Sing der grüne Baum Nom Plural Die grünen Bäume Dative Plural Den grünen Bäumen
without article Nom Sing grüner Baum Nom Plural grüne Bäume Dative Plural grünen Bäumen
Hope that helps
- 611
I think you mean "no article" not "no pronoun" in your first reply to me. (If not, I'll be terribly confused.)
There is no rule that says the article ending and adjective ending have to be the same.
Hi! Why is it "dem" if Haus is neuter? I thought dem was the masculine dative declination.
Your right. In dem Haus: in is a preposition which gives the following noun the dative case (exception when "in" means "into" it takes the accusative)
dem is masculine dative but also neuter dative.
(Similarly, des is genitive for both masculine and neuter.)
