Breakdown of Wir suchen in irgendeiner alten Kiste, bevor wir aufgeben.
in
in
wir
we
suchen
to look for
alt
old
die Kiste
the box
bevor
before
aufgeben
to give up (surrender, quit)
irgendein
some / any (singular)
Questions & Answers about Wir suchen in irgendeiner alten Kiste, bevor wir aufgeben.
Why is it irgendeiner with an -er ending here?
The preposition in is a two-way preposition. Here, it describes a static location (where are we searching?), so it triggers the dative case. The noun Kiste (box) is feminine, and the prefix irgend- is just attached to the indefinite article ein-, which takes its normal endings. The dative feminine form of ein is einer, giving us irgendeiner.
Why does the adjective alten end in -en instead of -er if the phrase is feminine dative?
Because the determiner irgendeiner already does the heavy lifting of showing the feminine dative -er ending, the adjective that follows gets a mixed declension ending. In the dative case, any adjective following an ein- word (including irgendein-) always takes the -en ending.
aufgeben (to give up) is a separable verb. Why isn't it split up into geben ... auf here?
The word bevor (before) is a subordinating conjunction, which kicks the conjugated verb to the very end of its clause. When a separable verb is forced to the end of a subordinate clause, its prefix and main verb reattach and stay together as one single word.
The English translation says "We'll search", but the German sentence uses the present tense (suchen). Is that normal?
Yes! In German, the present tense is very frequently used to express the future, as long as context makes it clear the action hasn't happened yet. Wir suchen can naturally mean "we search," "we are searching," or "we will search".
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