Breakdown of Wir gehen zu Fuß nach Hause.
wir
we
nach Hause
home (as a direction)
zu Fuß gehen
to go on foot, to walk
Questions & Answers about Wir gehen zu Fuß nach Hause.
How do I change this sentence into the Perfekt (past) tense using what we are learning in this lesson?
Because gehen describes a change of location from one place to another, it uses a form of sein (to be) as its helper verb instead of haben. The past participle of gehen is gegangen, which goes at the very end of the sentence. So, to say "We walked home" or "We have walked home", you would say: Wir sind zu Fuß nach Hause gegangen.
Why do we add zu Fuß if gehen already means "to walk"?
The verb gehen can mean "to walk", but it is also used generally to mean "to go". Adding zu Fuß (which literally means "on foot") makes it perfectly clear that you are physically walking rather than just going home by car, train, or bus.
Why does the sentence use nach Hause instead of zu Hause?
You use nach Hause when there is movement toward a destination, just like saying "I am going home" in English. You use zu Hause when you are already there, meaning "at home". Since we are moving toward our home in this sentence, we must use nach.
The English translation says "are walking", but I don't see a word for "are" in the German sentence. Why?
German does not have an "-ing" form (present continuous tense) to show that something is happening right now. The simple present tense Wir gehen means both "We walk" and "We are walking". You don't need to add an extra word for "are"!
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