Questions & Answers about Atme tief und langsam.
Why does Atme end in an "e"? Shouldn't it just be the verb stem?
Normally, to make an informal command for one person, you take the du form and drop the -st (like du gehst becomes Geh!). However, for verbs whose stems end in -t, -d, or consonant clusters like -tm (from atmen, to breathe), an -e is kept to make the word easier to say. That is why du atmest becomes Atme! and not just "Atm!".
Why is the verb Atme at the very beginning of the sentence?
In German command sentences (the imperative), the verb is always placed in the very first position. This works exactly like English commands, where we say "Breathe!" instead of starting with a subject.
Where is the word for "you" in this sentence?
When you give a command to someone you address informally, you completely drop the pronoun du. Just like in English, you simply say "Breathe!" instead of "You breathe!".
Don't tief and langsam mean "deep" and "slow"? Why are they translated as "deeply" and "slowly"?
In English, we usually add "-ly" to a word to describe how an action is done (slow becomes slowly). German is much easier here: adjectives and adverbs share the exact same form! So langsam can mean both "slow" and "slowly", and tief can mean both "deep" and "deeply".