Word
Das Publikum klatscht nach der Rede.
Meaning
The audience claps after the speech.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Das Publikum klatscht nach der Rede.
nach
after (in time)
die Rede
the speech
das Publikum
the audience
klatschen
to clap
Questions & Answers about Das Publikum klatscht nach der Rede.
Why does the sentence say der Rede when "speech" is a feminine noun (die Rede)?
Because of the preposition nach (after). The word nach is one of a special group of prepositions that always force the following noun into the dative case. For feminine nouns like die Rede, the article die changes to der in the dative.
Since an audience is a group of people, why is the verb singular (klatscht)?
In German, collective nouns like das Publikum (the audience) or die Familie (the family) are strictly treated as singular grammatical units. Even though it represents many people, das Publikum is singular, so the verb takes the standard third-person singular ending -t.
Is klatschen nach a fixed verb-preposition pair, like the ones in this lesson?
No, it is just a regular verb followed by a phrase about time. While some verbs require a specific preposition to make sense (like träumen von for "to dream of"), here nach just means "after" and tells us when the clapping happened. You can use nach with the dative case to say "after [something]" with almost any verb.
I've seen the word applaudieren. Is klatschen the same thing?