Breakdown of Der Bestseller, welchen alle lesen, ist spannend.
sein
to be
alle
all, everyone
lesen
to read
spannend
exciting, thrilling
Questions & Answers about Der Bestseller, welchen alle lesen, ist spannend.
Why do we use welchen instead of den here?
In German, welcher, welche, and welches can be used as relative pronouns instead of the usual der, die, and das. They mean the exact same thing (which or that), but belong to a more formal, written register. You will rarely hear them in everyday speech, but you will often see them in books and articles.
Why does welcher take the -en ending in this sentence?
A relative pronoun must match the noun it refers to in gender and number (masculine singular, for Der Bestseller), but its case depends on its role inside the relative clause. Here, everyone (alle) is the subject doing the reading, and the bestseller is the direct object being read. Therefore, it takes the masculine accusative ending -en, just like the article den.
When would a German speaker actually choose to use welchen over den?
Aside from just sounding more elevated in writing, authors often use the welcher family to avoid repeating the same words. For example, if a sentence already has several words like der, den, or dem clustered together, swapping one out for a welcher word makes the sentence flow better and look more elegant on the page.
Is it normal to have two verbs right next to each other, like lesen, ist?