Breakdown of Was hörst du im Tattoostudio surren?
du
you (informal singular)
was
what
hören
to hear / to listen
im
in the (used with months) / in the (contraction of in + dem)
das Tattoostudio
the tattoo parlor
surren
to buzz
Questions & Answers about Was hörst du im Tattoostudio surren?
Why is it surren and not zu surren?
Hören (to hear) is a verb of perception. In German, perception verbs like hören and sehen act a bit like modal verbs: when they are paired with another verb, that second verb is just a plain infinitive without zu.
The English translation says "buzzing". Why does German use the infinitive surren instead of an "-ing" form?
German doesn't have a direct equivalent to the English "-ing" form for this kind of sentence. When you express that you hear, see, or feel someone or something doing a continuous action, German simply uses the bare infinitive. So "hear buzzing" becomes hören ... surren.
Why is surren placed at the very end of the sentence?
This is an example of the classic German "sentence bracket" (Verbklammer). In a question starting with a question word like Was, the conjugated verb (hörst) takes the second position. Any other verbs in the sentence—in this case, the infinitive surren—are pushed to the very end.
Why do we use im before Tattoostudio?
Tattoostudio is a neuter noun (das Studio). Because the sentence describes a fixed location (where are you hearing this?), the two-way preposition in takes the dative case. In + dem contracts to im.
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