Breakdown of Wir fliegen am neunzehnten nach Italien, nicht am elften.
wir
we
nicht
not
nach
to / towards
Italien
Italy
fliegen
to fly
am
on the / at the
elfte
eleventh
neunzehnte
nineteenth
Questions & Answers about Wir fliegen am neunzehnten nach Italien, nicht am elften.
Why do neunzehn and elf end in -ten here instead of just -te?
Ordinal numbers normally end in -te, like der elfte (the eleventh). But when you say you are doing something on a certain date, you use am (which is short for an dem). Because dem is a dative article, the adjective ending changes to -en, making it am neunzehnten and am elften.
Are the ordinal numbers for 11 through 19 regular?
Yes, they are completely regular! You simply take the base number and add the ordinal ending. So elf becomes elfte, and neunzehn becomes neunzehnte. Unlike the numbers 1, 3, and 7, there are no special spelling changes to memorize for the teens.
Why do we use nach to say to Italien?
When traveling to a city, a continent, or a country that does not use a definite article in its name (like Italien, Deutschland, or Spanien), you use the preposition nach. If the country required an article, like die Schweiz (Switzerland), you would use in instead.
The English translation says we are flying, but the German sentence uses the present tense Wir fliegen. Why is there no future tense?
In German, it is very common to use the simple present tense to talk about the future. Because the sentence mentions specific dates like am neunzehnten, the context already makes it clear that the trip is happening later, so you do not need to use a future tense verb like werden.
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