Word
Man muss den Tisch wischen, aber nicht schrubben.
Meaning
One must wipe the table, but not scrub it.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Lesson
Breakdown of Man muss den Tisch wischen, aber nicht schrubben.
aber
but
der Tisch
the table
nicht
not
müssen
to have to, must
Questions & Answers about Man muss den Tisch wischen, aber nicht schrubben.
How would I express this exact same meaning using the passive alternative with "gehören" that we are learning?
You would say: Der Tisch gehört gewischt, aber nicht geschrubbt. In this structure, gehören acts like a passive modal expressing necessity (meaning "needs to be done"), and the action verbs change to their past participle forms.
If I change this to the "gehören" structure, does den Tisch stay in the accusative case?
No. In this active sentence, den Tisch is the direct object in the accusative case. If you use the passive alternative Der Tisch gehört gewischt, the table becomes the grammatical subject of the sentence, so it must change to the nominative case (der Tisch).
Why doesn't the second part of the sentence explicitly say aber man muss ihn nicht schrubben?
In German, just like in English, you can leave out repeated parts of a sentence when they are joined by a coordinating conjunction like aber, und, or oder. The subject man, the modal verb muss, and the object den Tisch all carry over automatically to the second infinitive, schrubben.
What is the exact difference between wischen and schrubben?
wischen means to wipe smoothly, like removing dust or light spills with a soft cloth. schrubben means to scrub vigorously with force. The sentence warns against being too aggressive, which might damage the table's finish.