Breakdown of Mein Handy liegt neben dem Sofa.
das Handy
the cellphone
mein
my
das Sofa
the sofa
liegen
to lie
neben
next to
Questions & Answers about Mein Handy liegt neben dem Sofa.
Why is it dem Sofa instead of das Sofa?
The word neben (next to) is a two-way preposition. This means it can take either the accusative or the dative case. Because the phone is resting in a fixed location (answering the question "where?" or wo?), we use the dative case here. The neuter noun das Sofa changes to dem Sofa in the dative.
Why do we use the verb liegt instead of just saying ist?
While you can technically say ist (is), German strongly prefers to describe exactly how an object is positioned in space. Because a cell phone is flat and rests horizontally, it "lies" (liegt). If you were talking about a lamp standing upright next to the sofa, you would use steht (stands) instead.
Is Handy an English word borrowed into German?
It looks like English, but das Handy is actually a "pseudo-anglicism"! It is an English-sounding word that Germans created to mean "cell phone" or "mobile phone." Remember to always capitalize it because it is a noun in German.
Why is there no ending on Mein?
Handy is a neuter noun (das Handy). Because the phone is the subject of the sentence doing the action (the nominative case), the word for "my" is just mein. If the subject were a feminine noun like die Tasche (the bag), you would need an -e ending: meine Tasche.
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