Word
Man soll hier nicht schwimmen. Es ist gefährlich!
Meaning
One should not swim here. It is dangerous!
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Questions & Answers about Man soll hier nicht schwimmen. Es ist gefährlich!
Why do we use soll here instead of sollen?
The verb is conjugated to match the subject man (one). The word man takes the same verb forms as er, sie, and es (he, she, it). For modal verbs like sollen, the third-person singular form is soll.
Is the word man just a lowercase version of the word for a man?
No, they are entirely different words! man (with one 'n') is a pronoun meaning 'one', 'people', or the general 'you' (like saying 'you shouldn't swim here'). The noun for a man or husband is der Mann (capitalized, with two 'n's).
Why is the verb schwimmen at the very end of the first sentence?
This is the standard German word order when using a modal verb. The modal verb (soll) takes the second position in the sentence, pushing the main action verb (schwimmen) to the very end in its infinitive (unchanged dictionary) form.
Why does nicht come immediately before schwimmen?
When you negate a whole action that is pushed to the end of a sentence by a modal verb, nicht usually goes right in front of that verb. Here, it negates the swimming, so it sits directly before schwimmen.