Breakdown of Es regnet und sie nimmt den Schirm.
sie
she
es
it
und
and
der Schirm
the umbrella
nehmen
to take
regnen
to rain
Questions & Answers about Es regnet und sie nimmt den Schirm.
Why is it Es regnet instead of Es ist regnen?
English uses 'it is raining' for things happening right now, but German does not have a continuous tense. You simply use the pronoun es (it) and the standard present tense verb regnet. Es regnet translates to both 'it rains' and 'it is raining'.
Why does the verb nehmen (to take) change to nimmt here?
nehmen is an irregular verb with a vowel shift. When used with er, sie, or es (he, she, it), the e in the stem changes to an i. It also has an unusual spelling shift where the h is dropped and the m is doubled, resulting in sie nimmt.
Why is it den Schirm and not der Schirm?
Schirm (umbrella) is a masculine noun. Because the umbrella is the direct object of the sentence (the thing being taken), it must be in the accusative case. The masculine word for 'the' changes from der to den in the accusative.
Does the word und affect the word order in the second half of the sentence?
No. The word und (and) is a coordinating conjunction, which means it joins two phrases without messing up their word order. After und, the second half of the sentence starts normally with the subject sie in position one and the conjugated verb nimmt in position two.
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