Breakdown of Wir hatten am vierzehnten und fünfzehnten April ein Problem.
ein
a, an (eine)
und
and
haben
to have
das Problem
the problem
wir
we
der April
April
am
on the / at the
vierzehnte
fourteenth
fünfzehnte
fifteenth
Questions & Answers about Wir hatten am vierzehnten und fünfzehnten April ein Problem.
How do we form ordinal numbers like 14th and 15th in German?
For numbers between 2 and 19, you simply take the regular number (vierzehn, fünfzehn) and add -te to the end to make the base ordinal. However, in this sentence, they get an extra -n because of the grammar rules for giving dates.
Why do vierzehnten and fünfzehnten end in -en instead of just -e?
When you give a date using am (meaning "on the"), you are using the dative case. The word am is short for an dem. Ordinal numbers act like adjectives, and after dem they must take an -n ending. So, the base ordinal vierzehnte becomes am vierzehnten.
Does the am at the beginning apply to both dates?
Yes. Just like in English where we say "on the fourteenth and fifteenth", you don't need to repeat am before fünfzehnten. The single am safely covers both ordinal numbers joined by und.
What tense is hatten in this sentence?
hatten is the simple past tense of haben (to have). For wir (we), the correct form is wir hatten (we had). In everyday spoken German, this simple past form is almost always used instead of the perfect tense when talking about what you "had".
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