Elon.io is an online learning platform
We have an entire course teaching German grammar and vocabulary.
Questions & Answers about Das Kind lacht gern.
Why does the verb end in '-t' (lacht)?
The subject of the sentence is Das Kind (The child). Since it is a third-person singular subject (equivalent to 'he', 'she', or 'it'), we drop the -en from the infinitive verb lachen (to laugh) and add -t. That gives us the conjugated form lacht.
How does the V2 (verb second) rule work in this sentence?
In standard German statements, the conjugated verb must be in the second position. The subject Das Kind functions as a single block of information, so those two words together take up the entire first position. The verb lacht takes the second position, directly after the subject block.
There is no verb for 'likes' here. How does gern work?
German usually does not use a verb for 'like' when talking about doing activities. Instead, you use the adverb gern, which means 'gladly' or 'with pleasure'. So, Das Kind lacht gern literally means 'The child laughs gladly', which is the natural way to say 'The child likes to laugh' in German.
Why is the article Das instead of Der or Die?
Every noun in German has a grammatical gender, and the word for child (Kind) is a neuter noun. Therefore, it takes the neuter definite article das for 'the'.