Word
Ich füge zweierlei Vanille und ein bisschen Sandelholz hinzu.
Meaning
I am adding two kinds of vanilla and a little bit of sandalwood.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Ich füge zweierlei Vanille und ein bisschen Sandelholz hinzu.
ich
I
und
and
ein bisschen
a bit, a little
hinzufügen
to add
Questions & Answers about Ich füge zweierlei Vanille und ein bisschen Sandelholz hinzu.
Why doesn't zweierlei have an adjective ending to match the feminine noun Vanille?
Adjectives ending in -erlei are invariant, meaning they never change their form regardless of the gender, case, or number of the noun they describe. Therefore, it stays zweierlei even though Vanille is feminine.
Could I just say zwei Vanillen instead of zweierlei Vanille?
They mean different things. While zwei Vanillen would mean two literal vanilla beans, zweierlei Vanille specifically means two different kinds of vanilla (for example, Madagascar and Tahitian). The -erlei suffix always expresses a variety of types.
Why is hinzu at the very end of the sentence?
It is the prefix of the separable verb hinzufügen (to add). In a main clause like this one, the conjugated core verb (füge) takes the second position, while the separable prefix (hinzu) is pushed to the very end of the sentence.
In English we say two kinds of vanilla and a little bit of sandalwood. Why is there no word for of in the German sentence?
German generally does not use a preposition to translate the English of after expressions of quantity, measurement, or variety. You simply place the noun directly after the quantifier, resulting in zweierlei Vanille and ein bisschen Sandelholz.