Breakdown of Guten Morgen! Bist du müde?
sein
to be
du
you (informal singular)
müde
tired
Guten Morgen
good morning
Questions & Answers about Guten Morgen! Bist du müde?
Why is it Guten Morgen and not just Gut Morgen?
Greetings like this are actually short for a full sentence like 'I wish you a good morning.' Because the morning is the direct object of the sentence, it takes the accusative case, which adds the -en ending to the adjective gut.
Why is Morgen capitalized here?
In German, every single noun (a person, place, thing, or concept) is capitalized, no matter where it appears in the sentence. Since Morgen (morning) is a noun, it must start with a capital letter.
How does the word order work in Bist du müde?
To ask a yes/no question in German, you just swap the subject and the verb. The regular statement for 'You are' is Du bist, so you flip them to Bist du to ask 'Are you?'. This works exactly like it does in English.
Does the word müde change if I am asking a man versus a woman?
No, it stays exactly the same. When an adjective comes directly after a verb like 'to be' (instead of being attached right in front of a noun), it never takes any special grammar endings.
Could I use the formal 'you' for this sentence?