Word
Der Aktivismus kritisiert die Autoritäten.
Meaning
Activism criticizes the authorities.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Der Aktivismus kritisiert die Autoritäten.
der
who, which, that (relative pronoun; die, das)
kritisieren
to criticize
der Aktivismus
the activism
die Autorität
the authority (power, expert)
Questions & Answers about Der Aktivismus kritisiert die Autoritäten.
Why is Aktivismus masculine?
Nouns ending in the Greek or Latin suffix -ismus are always masculine (der). This is a highly predictable pattern for loanwords, so you can confidently apply it to other words like der Kapitalismus or der Optimismus.
If I needed to make Aktivismus plural, how would I do it?
Although abstract concepts like activism rarely need a plural, nouns ending in -ismus change their suffix to -ismen in the plural. So the plural would be die Aktivismen (just like der Mechanismus becomes die Mechanismen).
How does the suffix -tät tell us the gender and plural of Autoritäten?
Why does the German sentence use Der before Aktivismus, when the English translation just says 'Activism'?
In German, abstract concepts, '-isms', and broad generalizations usually require a definite article (der, die, or das). English drops the article for these broad concepts, but German keeps it.