Breakdown of Wir können ohne Hilfe nicht gewinnen.
wir
we
nicht
not
können
can / to be able to
ohne
without
die Hilfe
the help
gewinnen
to win
Questions & Answers about Wir können ohne Hilfe nicht gewinnen.
Does ohne always take the accusative case?
Yes! The preposition ohne (without) is one of a special group of prepositions that strictly require the accusative case. Any noun or pronoun that follows it must take the accusative form.
If ohne requires the accusative case, why doesn't the word Hilfe look different here?
Nouns themselves usually don't change in the accusative case; instead, we change their articles (like den, die, or das). However, because we are talking about help in a general sense here, we drop the article completely, just like in English.
If I wanted to say "without his help", how would the accusative case show up?
Hilfe is a feminine noun. Because ohne forces the accusative case, you must add the feminine accusative ending -e to the word for "his" (sein). So you would say ohne seine Hilfe.
Why is gewinnen (to win) at the very end of the sentence?
This is a standard rule for modal verbs like können (can). The modal verb takes the second position in the sentence, and it pushes the main action verb (gewinnen) all the way to the end in its basic dictionary form.
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