Word
Der Prinz trat in das dunkle Zimmer.
Meaning
The prince stepped into the dark room.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Der Prinz trat in das dunkle Zimmer.
in
in
das Zimmer
the room
dunkel
dark
der
who, which, that (relative pronoun; die, das)
Questions & Answers about Der Prinz trat in das dunkle Zimmer.
What is the infinitive of trat, and how do its simple past forms work?
The infinitive is treten (to step or kick). It is a strong (irregular) verb, so its stem vowel changes in the simple past (Präteritum) from e to a, making the base trat. Like all strong verbs in the simple past, the 1st and 3rd person singular forms do not take any extra endings: ich trat, er trat. The plural forms just add the usual endings: wir traten, sie traten.
Why is das Zimmer in the accusative case here? Doesn't in also take the dative?
in is a two-way preposition. It takes the accusative case when it describes movement into a destination, answering the question 'where to?'. Because the prince is actively stepping into the room, we use the accusative das. If he were already standing inside the room, we would use the dative dem (often combined as im).
Why is the adjective ending -e in das dunkle Zimmer instead of -es?
Because we have the definite article das right before it, we use the weak adjective declension. The article das already clearly shows that the noun is neuter and accusative, so the adjective just takes a simple -e ending. If we used the indefinite article ein, the adjective would need to show the neuter gender with an -es ending, making it ein dunkles Zimmer.
I've seen treten translated as 'to kick' before. How do I know it means 'stepped' here?