Breakdown of Ein guter Schüler braucht Motivation und Disziplin, um alles selbst zu lernen.
ein
a, an (eine)
und
and
lernen
to learn
gut
good / well
brauchen
to need
alles
everything
um ... zu
in order to
der Schüler
the pupil, the school student
selbst
oneself, myself (emphatic); even
die Motivation
the motivation
die Disziplin
the discipline
Questions & Answers about Ein guter Schüler braucht Motivation und Disziplin, um alles selbst zu lernen.
Could I use selber instead of selbst in this sentence?
Why does selbst come after alles rather than before it?
As an emphatic word, selbst usually sits right next to the idea it is emphasizing. Here, it emphasizes that the student does the learning himself rather than emphasizing the word everything. Since it's an um ... zu clause, the verb (zu lernen) must go at the very end, so selbst naturally falls right before it.
What does the um ... zu construction do here?
It translates to "in order to." Whenever you want to express the purpose of an action (why the student needs motivation), you use um + [rest of the clause] + zu + [infinitive verb]. It connects the main idea to the goal: um alles selbst zu lernen (in order to learn everything himself).
Why does guter end in -er in Ein guter Schüler?
This is a classic example of mixed adjective declension. The noun Schüler is masculine, and it is the subject of the sentence (nominative case). Because the indefinite article Ein does not have a special ending to show that it is masculine, the adjective has to do the heavy lifting by taking the -er ending.
Why use alles instead of alle here?
alles means "everything" (referring to things in general as a single abstract concept), while alle means "everyone" or "all of them" (referring to specific countable people or things). Since the student is learning "everything," alles is the correct choice.
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