Word
Es ist kalt und er trägt eine Jacke.
Meaning
It is cold and he is wearing a jacket.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Questions & Answers about Es ist kalt und er trägt eine Jacke.
Who or what is es in this sentence?
Es means "it", but here it is the impersonal es. Just like in English when we say "it is cold" or "it is raining", German uses es as a dummy subject to talk about weather and temperatures. Since every sentence needs a subject, es steps in to do the job!
Why does the verb trägt have an umlaut (the two dots) over the a?
Trägt comes from the verb tragen (to wear / to carry). It is a strong verb, meaning it changes its stem vowel for the du (you) and er/sie/es (he/she/it) forms. The a changes to an ä, making it er trägt.
The translation says "is wearing", but doesn't trägt just mean "wears"?
German only has one present tense. It does not have a separate "is doing" form like English. Because of this, er trägt translates to both "he wears" (as a habit) and "he is wearing" (right now).
Why doesn't the word order change after the word und?
The word und (and) connects two main clauses, but it counts as being in "position zero". This means it doesn't take up the first slot of the new sentence. The pronoun er takes position 1, keeping the verb trägt correctly in the second position.