Breakdown of Der Schatten ist immateriell, aber man kann ihn sehen.
sein
to be
aber
but
sehen
to see
ihn
him
können
can / to be able to
man
one / you (impersonal)
der
who, which, that (relative pronoun; die, das)
der Schatten
the shadow
immateriell
immaterial
Questions & Answers about Der Schatten ist immateriell, aber man kann ihn sehen.
Why does immateriell use the prefix im- instead of in-?
immateriell is a loanword of Latin origin, which is why it uses a Latin negating prefix rather than the native German un-. The base prefix is actually in-, but before words starting with an m, p, or b, the n changes to an m to make it easier to pronounce. This works exactly the same way in English (immateriell -> immaterial; impulsiv -> impulsive).
Can immateriell also mean "irrelevant" in German, like it sometimes does in English?
No, it strictly means "non-physical" or "intangible" (literally: without matter). While English uses "immaterial" both literally and figuratively (e.g., "that is immaterial to our discussion"), German restricts it to the physical sense. If you want to say something is irrelevant, you should use words like unwichtig or belanglos.
Why do we use the pronoun ihn instead of es to mean "it"?
ihn refers back to der Schatten. Because Schatten is a masculine noun, its pronoun must also be masculine. Furthermore, since the shadow is the direct object of the verb sehen, the pronoun must be in the accusative case (ihn). English speakers often default to es for inanimate objects, but you must always match the noun's grammatical gender in German.
Why doesn't the word aber send the conjugated verb kann to the end of the sentence?
aber is a coordinating conjunction (like und, oder, or denn). These conjunctions take "position 0" in a clause, meaning they don't count towards the word order at all. The subject man takes position 1, allowing the conjugated verb kann to stay right where it belongs in position 2.
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