Questions & Answers about Er sieht seinen Garten.
Why does "his" have an -en ending (seinen) instead of just sein?
The base word for "his" is sein. In this sentence, the garden is the direct object (the thing being seen). Because Garten is a masculine noun (der Garten) and it is receiving the action, it is in the accusative case. So, sein takes the masculine accusative ending -en to become seinen.
How do I know the gender of Garten from this sentence?
You can actually figure out that it is masculine because of the -en ending on seinen. Only masculine nouns change their endings for "the", "a", or possessive words like "his" when they are the direct object. If the noun were neuter or feminine, you would see sein or seine.
The dictionary says "to see" is sehen. Why is it spelled sieht here?
sehen is a verb with a stem-vowel change. When using it with "he", "she", or "it" (er, sie, es), the e in the stem changes to ie, making it sieht. This also happens with the informal "you" (du siehst).
If "he" is er, why is the word for "his" sein? They don't look related.
Just like in English where "he" becomes a totally different word ("his"), German changes er to sein. You just have to memorize that sein is the root word for "his" (and also for "its").
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