Breakdown of Wir haben nach dem Spiel gefeiert.
haben
to have
wir
we
feiern
to celebrate
nach
after (in time)
Questions & Answers about Wir haben nach dem Spiel gefeiert.
Why does this sentence use dem Spiel instead of das Spiel?
The preposition nach (after) always requires the dative case. Since Spiel is a neuter noun (das Spiel), the article changes from das to dem in the dative case.
I thought nach meant "to" (like in nach Deutschland). Why does it mean "after" here?
You are right! The word nach can mean "to" when talking about traveling to countries, cities, or regions. But when used as a time word (a temporal preposition) like we see here, it means "after".
Why is gefeiert placed at the very end of the sentence?
This sentence is in the spoken past tense (Perfekt). In German, the helping verb (haben) takes the second position, and the past action (gefeiert) gets pushed to the very end of the sentence, wrapping around the time phrase nach dem Spiel.
How is the past tense word gefeiert formed?
It comes from the regular verb feiern (to celebrate). To make the past form for regular verbs, you add ge- to the front and -t to the end of the verb stem (feier-), giving you gefeiert.