"Meine Katze schläft unter dem Sofa."
Translation:My cat is sleeping under the sofa.
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Audio seems a bit buggy here, the normal speed version sounds like "dem sie Sofa" or something like that.
Can someone please help in understanding difference between usage of 'unter' and 'unten'?
I believe unter relates to the position of the cat to another noun, in this case the sofa. When there is no relationship use unten (below). Someone correct me if I'm wrong.
My cat is under the sofa. She is below. Under me.
Meine Katze is unter dem sofa. Sie ist unten. Unter mir.
Right.
Grammatically speaking, unten is an adverb and unter is a preposition.
Could you give an example of unten used in a sentence please. Thanks so much!
Are you a native speaker? I'm not, but I'm not convinced the pronunciation of "schläft" is wrong here.
The tip says that this is dative because the sofa is the indirect receiver... I'm sorry I don't get this? Is it because the sofa is... Actually I have no idea.
- 1691
I think it might be because the preposition "unter" always requires the dative case if there is no movement.
- Stationary location or... 2. Preposition "under" both trigger dative.
The cat isn't moving either so that also tells this sentence is dative form too.
Präposition unter triggers the Dativ and das Sofa becomes dem Sofa in Dativ form.
It triggers Dativ only because the verb is not an action one. Otherwise one could say: "Die Katze geht unter das Sofa."
