Questions & Answers about Hier ist meine Familie.
Why does the word for my have an -e at the end (meine)?
In German, possessive words like my change their ending to match the gender of the noun they describe. The word for family is a feminine noun (die Familie). When a feminine noun is the subject of the sentence (in the Nominative case), the possessive word adds an -e at the end, making it meine.
If I wanted to say 'Here is your family', how would I change meine?
You would use deine if you are speaking informally to a friend, or Ihre (with a capital I) if you are speaking formally. Just like meine, they take the -e ending here because Familie is a feminine noun.
A family has multiple people. Why do we use the singular verb ist instead of the plural sind?
Just like in English, the word Familie is a singular noun that represents a single group. Because we are talking about one family, we use the singular verb ist (is). If you were talking about multiple families, you would use the plural word Familien and the plural verb sind.
Is there a rule for the word order in this sentence?
Yes! In basic German statements, the verb always takes the second position. Here, the place word Hier is in the first position, so the verb ist must come exactly second. The subject, meine Familie, then follows the verb.