Breakdown of Das Wetter ist schlecht und die Sonne scheint nicht.
sein
to be
und
and
nicht
not
das Wetter
the weather
schlecht
bad
die Sonne
the sun
scheinen
to shine
Questions & Answers about Das Wetter ist schlecht und die Sonne scheint nicht.
Since this lesson is about using es for weather, why don't we use es instead of die Sonne here?
In this sentence, a specific thing is doing the action: the sun (die Sonne) is doing the shining (scheinen). We only use the impersonal es (it) when there isn't a specific object performing the action, like in es regnet (it is raining) or es ist schlecht (it is bad). If you wanted to use es here, you could say es ist nicht sonnig (it is not sunny).
The translation says "is not shining". Why is there no word for "is" in the German sentence?
German doesn't have an "-ing" form (continuous tense) like English does. The simple present tense covers both meanings. So, die Sonne scheint means both "the sun shines" and "the sun is shining". Adding a word for "is" (ist) alongside the main verb would be grammatically incorrect in German!
Why does nicht go at the very end of the sentence?
When you want to negate a whole action (the fact that the sun is shining), nicht generally drops to the end of the clause. In English, we put "not" right before the action verb, but German places it after the main verb, pushing it to the end of this phrase.
Does the word und change the word order of the second half of the sentence?
No, it doesn't. und (and) is a coordinating conjunction, which means it joins two equal sentences without messing up their word order. It sits in "position zero". After und, you just start a normal sentence with the subject (die Sonne) in position 1 and the verb (scheint) in position 2.
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