"She sits down."
Translation:Sie setzt sich.
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sitzen = to sit. To be in a seated position.
setzen = to seat, to set, to place. To put something into a "seated" position.
sich setzen = to sit down. To move into a seated position.
"sich setzen" is a reflexive verb in German.
English reflexive verb examples:
- to cut oneself
- to introduce oneself
Thanks. In English we leave off the "oneself" or at least it's optional. Is it the same in German?
The reflexive version just describes that the person that does the action is also the object of the action. So setzen comes always with an object or a reflexive pronoun (sich/mich etc.) as a "replacement object".
Ich setze mich auf den Stuhl. Ich setze das Baby auf den Stuhl.
It's not optional in English in those examples. "I introduce" and "I introduce myself" have different meanings. Think of it similarly for the German reflexive verbs - they're incorrect or just different without the reflexive pronoun.
It can be tricky to remember which verbs are reflexive in German though, especially when they don't correspond to a reflexive verb in English. That's something I still struggle with too! Just need to keep practising...
Is there somewhere in duolingo where this was previously explained? It is absolutely maddening to suffer through these without any explanation. Sich, dich, mich, uns...my god just explain what reflexive verbs are and how to use them in a Tips. And then come into these discussions are mostly people asking the same questions over and over, some from years ago. Is it not obvious to the duolingo overlords this is so poorly explained (if at al)?
