Breakdown of Du darfst dein Schicksal nicht vergessen.
du
you (informal singular)
nicht
not
vergessen
to forget
dein
your (informal)
dürfen
to be allowed to, may
das Schicksal
the fate
Questions & Answers about Du darfst dein Schicksal nicht vergessen.
Why does darfst mean "must" here when dürfen usually means "to be allowed to"?
In German, nicht dürfen means "to not be allowed to", which translates perfectly to "must not" in English. Watch out for this common trap: if you want to say "you don't have to" do something, you use nicht müssen (du musst nicht). But du darfst nicht strictly means "you must not" or "you are not allowed to".
How would I say "You will not forget your fate" using the future tense from this lesson?
To use the future tense (Futur I), you replace the modal verb darfst with the correct form of werden. For du, that becomes wirst. The main verb vergessen stays at the very end in its infinitive form. The future version is: Du wirst dein Schicksal nicht vergessen.
Why is the verb vergessen at the very end of the sentence?
This is the standard "verb bracket" rule for sentences with modal verbs. The conjugated modal verb (darfst) takes the second position in the sentence, and the main action verb (vergessen) gets pushed to the very end in its infinitive (dictionary) form.
Why do we use dein instead of deinen for "your"?
The word for fate is neuter (das Schicksal). In this sentence, it is the direct object (the thing being forgotten), so it takes the accusative case. For neuter nouns in the accusative case, the possessive word dein does not take any extra endings.
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