Breakdown of Der Experte fragt, ob die Datierung richtig ist.
sein
to be
fragen
to ask
richtig
right
ob
whether / if
der Experte
the expert
die Datierung
the dating
Questions & Answers about Der Experte fragt, ob die Datierung richtig ist.
The current lesson is about nominalizing clauses. How could we transform the ob clause into a prepositional noun phrase?
You can nominalize the adjective richtig into the noun die Richtigkeit (the correctness) and use the preposition nach (since the verb is fragen nach). The sentence then transforms to: Der Experte fragt nach der Richtigkeit der Datierung. Transforming subordinate clauses into prepositional noun phrases like this is a key skill for formal German at the B2/C1 levels.
Die Datierung clearly comes from a verb. What is the rule for this type of nominalization?
Die Datierung is formed from the verb datieren (to date/assign a date). You can often turn a verb into a noun describing the action or its result by taking the verb stem and adding -ung. Nouns ending in -ung are always feminine, which is why it is die Datierung.
Is der Experte an n-declension (weak) noun, and why doesn't it have an -n ending here?
Yes, der Experte belongs to the masculine n-declension group. However, these nouns only take an -n (or -en) ending in the accusative, dative, and genitive cases. Here, the expert is the subject of the sentence (nominative case), so the base form der Experte is used. If he were the direct object, it would be Ich frage den Experten.
As a quick refresher, why must we use ob here instead of wenn for the English word "if"?
While English casually uses "if" for both conditions and questions, German strictly separates them. You must use ob for indirect yes/no questions (where you could substitute "whether" in English). You use wenn for conditional statements (meaning "in the event that"). Since the expert is asking a question that has a yes/no answer, ob is required.
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