Breakdown of Der Mixer ist kaputt und der Teig ist mir völlig misslungen.
ich
I
sein
to be
und
and
kaputt
broken
der Teig
the dough
völlig
completely
misslingen
to fail (an attempt, plan, project)
der Mixer
the mixer
Questions & Answers about Der Mixer ist kaputt und der Teig ist mir völlig misslungen.
Why does the German sentence use mir instead of saying mein Teig (my dough)?
This is a classic example of the dative of disadvantage. While you could grammatically say mein Teig, using the dative mir emphasizes that the failure happened to you and negatively affected you. It is the most natural way to talk about accidents or mishaps in German, translating roughly to "the dough failed on me."
I would normally try to say "Ich habe den Teig misslungen." Why is the dough the subject here?
The verb misslingen (to fail / to go wrong) works differently than the active verb "to fail" in English. You cannot actively "fail" an object in German. Instead, the thing that goes wrong acts as the subject (der Teig), and the person experiencing the failure takes the dative case (mir).
Why doesn't the past participle misslungen start with a ge- prefix?
The verb misslingen begins with miss-, which is an inseparable prefix. Verbs that start with inseparable prefixes (such as be-, ver-, ent-, and miss-) do not add a ge- prefix when forming their past participle.
Why does misslingen use sein (here, ist) as its helping verb instead of haben?
misslingen is an intransitive verb (meaning it doesn't take a direct accusative object) that describes a change in condition or a final outcome. Verbs of this type always form the Perfekt tense with sein rather than haben.
Learn Der Mixer ist kaputt und der Teig ist mir völlig misslungen and more in German
All course content and exercises are completely free — no paywalls, no trial periods, no signup needed.
- ✓ Practice with interactive exercises
- ✓ Track your progress with spaced repetition
- ✓Learn at your own pace — completely free