Breakdown of Aus dem Urlaub kam nur eine Postkarte.
kommen
to come
aus
from / out of (made of)
der Urlaub
the vacation / the holiday
nur
only
die Postkarte
the postcard
Questions & Answers about Aus dem Urlaub kam nur eine Postkarte.
Why is it aus dem Urlaub and not von dem Urlaub for "from the holiday"?
In German, you use aus when returning or bringing something from a vacation. You can think of a holiday as an enclosed experience that you are coming "out of." Therefore, you always say aus dem Urlaub or aus den Ferien rather than using von.
Why is the subject nur eine Postkarte at the end of the sentence?
This is due to the strict verb-second rule in German main clauses. The sentence starts with the prepositional phrase Aus dem Urlaub in position one, so the verb kam must take position two. This naturally pushes the subject, nur eine Postkarte, to the other side of the verb. Moving the holiday to the front emphasizes where the postcard came from.
Why does the sentence use kam instead of ist gekommen?
kam is the Präteritum (simple past) of kommen. While conversational German usually prefers the Perfekt tense for past events (ist gekommen), written German and storytelling rely heavily on the Präteritum. However, kommen is one of a handful of common verbs where native speakers also use the shorter simple past form frequently in casual speech.
Why is the article dem used here instead of der Urlaub?
The preposition aus is a "dative preposition," meaning it always forces the noun that follows it into the dative case. Because Urlaub is a masculine noun (der Urlaub), its article changes from der to dem in the dative.
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