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- "Her daughters are young."
"Her daughters are young."
Translation:Ihre Töchter sind jung.
12 Comments
992
Because "sie" is "she" or "they", not "her". "She daughters are young" doesn't make sense.
Ihre is "her" or "their" depending on context and is basically the possessive form of "sie". If "sie" owns something, it is "ihre". However even the word "ihre" has different forms I think, and unfortunately, like you, I am also learning and don't know all the forms yet. Es ist nicht einfach, aber ich lerne seit zehn Monaten.
Why is "Ihre Töchtern sind jung" wrong?
Because Töchtern with -n is the dative case, but the subject of a sentence is in the nominative case -- thus you need ihre Töchter.
"sind" is the form used after "wir" (we), "sie" (they), "Sie" (you, formal) and plural nouns. "Seid" is used after "ihr" (You, plural, informal)
How are we supposed to differentiate formal to informal and plural to singular "you" when to translate from english to german? This is ridiculous.
How are we supposed to differentiate formal to informal and plural to singular "you" when to translate from english to german?
You aren't. Multiple translations are accepted in sentences where "you" or "your" appears.
I thought that the adjective jung declined with the gender and number of the noun it described, so I was expecting "...sind junge" in the answer. Was I simply wrong in my assumption, or is there something else that I'm missing?
Attributive adjectives (ones before a noun) need an ending that depends on the gender, number, and case of the noun that follows, as well as on the article or other determiner that precedes the adjective.
Predicate adjectives (roughly: those after "to be") do not inflect for gender, number, and case.
Thus you would have junge Töchter and ihre jungen Töchter (both with endings) but ihre Töchter sind jung (without ending).
Why not Deine instead of Ihre?
deine Töchter is "your daughters", not "her daughters".
