Word
Ich freue mich auf den Urlaub.
Meaning
I am looking forward to the vacation.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Ich freue mich auf den Urlaub.
ich
I
der Urlaub
the vacation / the holiday
auf
on / to (down/up to a level)
sich freuen
to be happy / to look forward to
Questions & Answers about Ich freue mich auf den Urlaub.
Why is there a mich in this sentence?
The verb here is sich freuen, which is a reflexive verb. In German, you do not just look forward, you look forward yourself. Because ich is the subject, you must use the accusative reflexive pronoun mich to complete the verb.
I thought sich freuen meant to be happy. Why does it mean looking forward to here?
The meaning changes depending on the preposition! If you use sich freuen über, it means you are happy about something right now or in the past. But when you use sich freuen auf, it means you are looking forward to something in the future, like an upcoming vacation.
Why is it den Urlaub (accusative) and not dem Urlaub (dative)?
The phrase sich freuen auf is a fixed combination that always requires the accusative case for the thing you are anticipating. Even though auf is a two-way preposition that sometimes takes the dative, this specific verb phrase forces the accusative, which is why the masculine noun Urlaub becomes den Urlaub.
Does auf literally mean to here?
Literally, auf usually means on. However, in fixed phrases like sich freuen auf, you cannot translate word-for-word. The whole phrase sich freuen auf works together as a single idea that translates to to look forward to in English.