Breakdown of Meine Familie kommt am zweiten April.
kommen
to come
mein
my
die Familie
the family
der April
April
am
on the / at the
zweite
second
Questions & Answers about Meine Familie kommt am zweiten April.
Why do we use am before the date?
am is a combination of an and the dative article dem. You use am for specific days and dates, exactly like how we say "on" a certain day in English.
Why does zweiten end in -en and not just zweite?
Ordinal numbers like zweite act like adjectives. Because am hides the dative word dem, the adjective following it has to take the dative ending -en. So, dates with am will always have this -en ending on the number.
The translation says "is coming". Why is the present tense kommt used for a future event?
In German, it is very common to use the present tense for future plans, as long as the sentence includes a time word or phrase (like am zweiten April) that makes it clear the event is happening later.
A family has multiple people, so why is the verb singular (kommt) instead of plural (kommen)?
The word Familie is a single unit, so it is a grammatically singular noun. Even though it describes a group of people, it requires the singular verb kommt, just like we usually say "the family is" in English.
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