Breakdown of Alle dürfen in den Club gehen, außer den Kindern.
das Kind
the child
in
in
alle
all, everyone
gehen
to go
dürfen
to be allowed to, may
der
who, which, that (relative pronoun; die, das)
der Club
the club (nightclub, leisure)
außer
except
Questions & Answers about Alle dürfen in den Club gehen, außer den Kindern.
Why does the sentence end with den Kindern instead of die Kinder?
The preposition außer (except) always requires the dative case. Because we are talking about multiple children, we need the dative plural article den. Also, remember the special rule for dative plural nouns: they almost always add an extra -n at the end, which changes Kinder to Kindern.
Wait, if außer takes the dative, why is it in den Club earlier in the sentence?
Club is affected by the preposition in, not außer. The word in is a two-way preposition that takes the accusative case when it describes movement toward a destination. Since people are going into the masculine noun Club, we use the accusative den. If they were already hanging out inside, we would use the dative (in dem Club).
Why is Alle paired with the plural verb dürfen when the English translation says "Everyone is"?
In English, words like "everyone" or "everybody" are singular. In German, alle literally means "all" and is always treated as a plural subject. Because of this, the modal verb dürfen (to be allowed to) must also be in its plural form.
Why is there a comma before außer den Kindern?
In German, when an exclusion or an afterthought is tacked onto the very end of an otherwise complete sentence, it gets separated by a comma. If you moved the exception to the middle of the sentence to sit directly next to the subject (Alle außer den Kindern dürfen...), you would not use commas.
Learn Alle dürfen in den Club gehen, außer den Kindern and more in German
All course content and exercises are completely free — no paywalls, no trial periods, no signup needed.
- ✓ Practice with interactive exercises
- ✓ Track your progress with spaced repetition
- ✓Learn at your own pace — completely free