Word
Was machst du aus sauren Zitronen?
Meaning
What do you make out of sour lemons?
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Was machst du aus sauren Zitronen?
du
you (informal singular)
machen
to make, to do
aus
from / out of (made of)
was
what
Questions & Answers about Was machst du aus sauren Zitronen?
Why does the adjective end in "-en" here (sauren)?
The preposition aus forces the phrase into the dative case. When you have a plural noun (Zitronen) with no article in front of it, the adjective takes the dative plural ending -en.
Why isn't it spelled saueren?
The base adjective is sauer. When adjectives end in -er or -el (like sauer or dunkel), they usually drop the e right before the r or l when you add an ending. This makes it easier to pronounce, so it becomes sauren.
Is aus always followed by the dative case?
Yes! aus is one of the strict dative prepositions in German (along with words like mit, bei, and von). That is why the whole phrase sauren Zitronen must be in the dative case.
Dative plural nouns usually get an extra -n at the end. Why doesn't Zitronen get one?
You are right that dative plural nouns usually add an extra -n. However, the normal plural form of die Zitrone is die Zitronen. Because the word already ends in an -n, you do not add a second one.