Breakdown of Er darf keine Kritik üben.
er
he
kein
no, not any
dürfen
to be allowed to, may
üben
to practice
die Kritik
the criticism
Questions & Answers about Er darf keine Kritik üben.
Why does the sentence use Kritik üben instead of just the verb kritisieren?
Kritik üben is a Noun-Verb Support Construction (Nomen-Verb-Verbindung). While you could just say Er darf nicht kritisieren, German frequently uses these fixed noun-verb pairs in formal, professional, or written contexts to sound more elegant. Literally, it translates to 'to practice criticism'.
Does üben always mean 'to practice' like practicing an instrument?
Usually, yes. But in these fixed support constructions, the verb often loses its literal meaning and just serves to support the noun. In the fixed phrase Kritik üben, it simply means 'to voice criticism' or 'to criticize'. You cannot swap üben for a generic verb like machen here.
Why do we use keine to negate this instead of nicht?
We use keine because we are negating a noun (die Kritik). In German, nouns without a definite article are negated with kein or keine. If the sentence used the normal verb instead of the noun-verb construction, you would use nicht: Er darf nicht kritisieren.
Why is üben pushed to the very end of the sentence?
This is due to the modal verb darf (from dürfen, meaning to be allowed to). In German, when you use a conjugated modal verb in the second position of a sentence, it sends the main verb (here, the infinitive üben) to the very end.
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