Breakdown of Wir wollen aufräumen. Bitte stellt die Kiste in die Ecke!
in
in
wir
we
bitte
please
wollen
to want
Questions & Answers about Wir wollen aufräumen. Bitte stellt die Kiste in die Ecke!
Why do we use stellt (from stellen) instead of legt or setzt for a box?
Stellen means to place something upright or set it standing. A box (die Kiste) typically has a flat bottom and stands upright. If you were placing something flat, like a rug or a piece of paper, you would use legen (to lay flat).
Why is it in die Ecke (accusative) instead of in der Ecke (dative)?
in is a two-way preposition. Because we are actively moving the box into the corner (indicating direction or a change of location), it takes the accusative case here. If the box was already resting there, we would use the dative to describe its location: Die Kiste steht in der Ecke.
Who is being told to put the box in the corner? Why is the verb stellt?
The speaker is giving a command to multiple people they know informally (ihr, meaning you all). To form a command for a group of people informally, you just use the normal present-tense conjugation but drop the pronoun: (ihr) stellt becomes the command Stellt!
aufräumen is a separable verb. Why aren't the parts separated here?
Because of the modal verb wollen (want to). Modal verbs take the second position in the sentence, and they push the main action verb to the very end of the sentence in its full, unseparated dictionary form (the infinitive).