Breakdown of Wir suchen eine Wohnung mit niedriger Miete.
suchen
to look for
die Wohnung
the apartment
mit
with
die Miete
the rent
niedrig
low
Questions & Answers about Wir suchen eine Wohnung mit niedriger Miete.
Wait, since the current lesson is about comparative adjectives, doesn't niedriger mean "lower" here?
It actually just means "low" here! This is a classic trap. The base adjective is niedrig (low). Because it is used without an article after the dative preposition mit, it takes the strong dative feminine ending, which is -er (matching the dative feminine article der). If you wanted to say "with lower rent", you would take the comparative form niedriger and add that -er ending to it, resulting in mit niedrigerer Miete.
Why doesn't the sentence say mit einer niedrigen Miete?
You absolutely could say mit einer niedrigen Miete (with a low rent), and it would be perfectly correct. However, just like in English, German can drop the article when talking about a general category or concept. When you drop the article, the adjective has to do the heavy lifting of showing the case. It changes from the weak ending (niedrigen) to the strong ending (niedriger) to clearly show that it is dative feminine.
How can I tell that Miete is a feminine noun just by looking at this sentence?
The adjective ending gives it away! Because there is no article, the adjective niedrig has to take the strong dative ending. The ending -er in the dative case is exclusively used for feminine nouns. If the noun were masculine or neuter, the ending would be -em (for example, mit niedrigem Einkommen for "with low income").
Why is Wohnung in the accusative case (eine Wohnung) while Miete is in the dative case?
Different parts of the sentence are controlled by different words. The verb suchen (to look for) needs a direct object, so the thing being sought (eine Wohnung) goes in the accusative case. However, the preposition mit always forces the specific noun phrase right after it into the dative case, which is why the rent portion becomes niedriger Miete.
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