Word
Ein schnelles Auto ist oft teuer.
Meaning
A fast car is often expensive.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Questions & Answers about Ein schnelles Auto ist oft teuer.
Why does the adjective schnell end in -es here?
This sentence is in the nominative case because the car is the subject. Auto is a neuter noun (das Auto). Because the article ein doesn't have a special ending to show that the noun is neuter, the adjective has to do that job. It takes the strong neuter ending -es, becoming schnelles.
If Auto is neuter, why doesn't the article have an ending (like eines)?
The indefinite article ein (a/an) naturally has no ending in the nominative case for masculine and neuter nouns. This "missing" ending on the article is the exact reason why the adjective following it is forced to pick up the slack and take the -es ending.
What would happen to the adjective if I used mein (my) or kein (no) instead of ein?
Nothing would change! Possessive articles like mein and the negative article kein follow the exact same pattern as ein. Since mein and kein also don't have endings for neuter nominative nouns, you would still say mein schnelles Auto or kein schnelles Auto.
Why does schnelles get an ending, but teuer (expensive) does not?