Breakdown of Der Drache flog über den Berg.
fliegen
to fly
über
over, above
der Berg
the mountain
der
who, which, that (relative pronoun; die, das)
Questions & Answers about Der Drache flog über den Berg.
How do we form the simple past tense of fliegen in this sentence?
flog is the simple past (Präteritum) of the irregular verb fliegen (to fly). Strong verbs change their stem vowel in the past tense, so the ie becomes o. Because the subject der Drache is third-person singular (it/the dragon), we use the bare stem flog without any extra endings.
Why do we use the accusative den Berg after über?
über is a two-way preposition. It takes the accusative case here because the dragon is actively moving across the mountain, answering the question "where to?" or "in what direction?" (wohin?). If the dragon were flying in circles above the mountain without traveling anywhere new, we would use the dative case (über dem Berg).
Is Drache a weak noun? Why doesn't it have an -n ending here?
Yes, der Drache is a weak masculine noun (n-declension), meaning it usually takes an -n ending. However, weak nouns only take that extra ending in the accusative, dative, and genitive cases. Since the dragon is the subject doing the action, it is in the nominative case and remains just der Drache.