Word
Meine Eltern sind alt.
Meaning
My parents are old.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Questions & Answers about Meine Eltern sind alt.
Why does 'my' have an 'e' at the end here (meine) instead of just mein?
Because Eltern (parents) is a plural noun. When the subject of a sentence is plural, possessive words like mein (my) get an -e ending added to them, making it meine.
Why do we use the verb sind in this sentence?
sind means 'are'. Since Eltern is a plural noun, we have to use the matching plural form of the verb sein (to be), which is sind.
Since Eltern is plural, shouldn't the adjective alt have a plural ending like alte?
No, because alt comes after the verb sind. In German, adjectives only get matching endings when they are placed directly in front of the noun they describe. When they are separated by a verb, they just use their basic dictionary form.
Is there a singular form of Eltern if I only want to say 'my parent is old'?
The word Eltern refers to parents together and is always plural. If you want to talk about just one parent, you usually specify mein Vater (my father) or meine Mutter (my mother).