Word
Die hohen Kosten sind schon oft zur Sprache gekommen.
Meaning
The high costs have already come up often.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Die hohen Kosten sind schon oft zur Sprache gekommen.
sein
to be
oft
often
kommen
to come
zur
to the (zu + der)
Questions & Answers about Die hohen Kosten sind schon oft zur Sprache gekommen.
How does zur Sprache kommen relate to the active phrase zur Sprache bringen?
This is a perspective shift typical of noun-verb support constructions. zur Sprache kommen is the intransitive (passive-like) version, meaning a topic comes up or is discussed. Here, the topic (die hohen Kosten) is the grammatical subject. If you want to say that a specific person actively raised the topic, you switch to the transitive verb bringen, making the person the subject and the topic the object, as in: Wir haben die Kosten zur Sprache gebracht.
Why is the auxiliary verb sind used here instead of haben?
The choice of auxiliary verb in a noun-verb construction depends entirely on the base verb. Because kommen expresses motion or a change of state, it requires sein in the perfect tense. If you were using the active counterpart zur Sprache bringen, you would use haben because bringen takes a direct object.
Why is the adjective spelled hohen instead of hochen?
The adjective hoch has an irregular stem: it drops the -c- whenever an adjective ending is added. Since die Kosten is plural and follows a definite article (die), the weak declension rule applies, giving it an -en ending. Therefore, hoch becomes hohen.
Does mean exactly the same thing as the passive voice ?