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- Topic: German >
- "We eat an apple."
"We eat an apple."
Translation:Wir essen einen Apfel.
34 Comments
It is masculine, but because it's in the accusative form (the object of the sentence), it's einen Apfel.
Still, since the accusative has not yet been explained up until this stage, the "owl" shouldn't mark it as a mistake, in my opinion.
It's a mistake whether or not you know it. I agree that it should have given you some warning, but I don't think it should support bad habits.
Isst is used in second person (you) and third person (he/she/it) singular, while essen is used for first (we) and third person (they) plural. The conjugation chart helps to show all of this.
If you look up "essen" under your vocab, it should list all the conjugations
it's <einen apfel> because of the a at the start of apfel?? like< an apple>>??
It's because in German, many nouns change form depending on their position in the sentence - this is called case. (The English equivalent is the difference between using "he" and "him" or "she" and "her". We have lost this with nouns.) Apfel is masculine - ein Apfel - but since in the sentence it is the object of the verb, it goes into the accusative case, thus einen. (If you google "german articles" you'll get a wikipedia entry with a chart.) And yes, this is a really hard thing to learn the duolingo route!
Given that Duolingo has made no reference to cases to this point (in the lesson plan), it seems incorrect to test on the concept.
No, the verb "essen" comes with akkusativ, (what are we eating?). Therefore it's "einen Apfel" and not "ein Apfel".
Use "den" when the question asks for "the" and the direct object is masculine and singular.
Use "einen" when the question asks for "a" and the direct object is masculine and singular.
Example:
the apple = der Apfel, the apple (direct object) = den Apfel
an apple = ein Apfel, an apple (direct object) = einen Apfel.
how do i get the difference between definate and indefinate, when am i supposed to use one or the other?
Definite article means a specific object is discussed. In English the definite article is "the."
For example, if there's an apple on the table and it was gone ten minutes later, I would ask "where is the apple" because I want to know what happened to the apple on the table. I want to know what happened to a specific object.
If I asked "where is an apple," I would be asking where I can find any odd apple. Apple is non-specific in this case and the English article for indefinite nouns are a or an.
Apfel is a masculine noun. ein => a/an for masculine nouns eine => a/an for feminine nouns
This seems more simple to me than Romance languages. I hate the Romance languages.
