Breakdown of Du musst dir keine Sorgen machen.
du
you (informal singular)
machen
to make, to do
kein
no, not any
müssen
to have to, must
sich
oneself / himself / herself / themselves (reflexive pronoun)
die Sorge
the worry
Questions & Answers about Du musst dir keine Sorgen machen.
Why is the sentence using dir instead of dich?
The phrase for 'to worry' is sich Sorgen machen (literally, to make worries for oneself). Because keine Sorgen (no worries) is the direct object in the accusative case, the reflexive pronoun must take the dative case. The dative form for 'you' is dir.
Why do we use keine here instead of nicht?
In German, when you negate a noun that doesn't have a definite article, you use a form of kein. Because Sorgen is a plural noun, we say keine Sorgen (literally 'no worries') rather than negating the verb with nicht.
Does Sorgen machen literally translate to 'make worries'?
Yes! While in English 'worry' is usually just a verb, German often uses noun-verb combinations. Here, you literally 'make worries for yourself'.
Why does machen go at the very end of the sentence?
This is because of the modal verb musst (must or have to). In German, a conjugated modal verb takes the second position in the sentence, and it pushes the main action verb (machen) all the way to the end in its infinitive (dictionary) form.
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