Word
Es ist schwierig, eine Gemeinschaft aufzubauen, ohne miteinander zu sprechen.
Meaning
It is difficult to build a community without talking to each other.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Es ist schwierig, eine Gemeinschaft aufzubauen, ohne miteinander zu sprechen.
sein
to be
ein
a, an (eine)
es
it
sprechen
to speak
Questions & Answers about Es ist schwierig, eine Gemeinschaft aufzubauen, ohne miteinander zu sprechen.
Why is it miteinander as one word instead of mit einander?
When a short preposition comes before the reciprocal pronoun einander (each other), they are combined into a single word. So mit (with) plus einander becomes miteinander (with each other). You will also see this with other prepositions, like füreinander (for each other) or voneinander (from each other).
Why is the zu stuck in the middle of aufzubauen?
The verb aufbauen (to build up) is a separable verb. In an infinitive construction where you would use zu (meaning 'to build' in English), the zu is squeezed directly between the separable prefix auf and the root verb bauen. This merges them into one single word: aufzubauen.
The English translation says 'without talking'. Why does the German sentence use ohne ... zu sprechen instead of an '-ing' word?
German does not have an exact grammatical equivalent to the English '-ing' gerund form. To express 'without doing something', German uses the specific construction ohne ... zu followed by the infinitive of the verb at the end of the clause. Literally, ohne miteinander zu sprechen means 'without with each other to speak'.
Why are there commas before eine Gemeinschaft and ohne miteinander?