Breakdown of Der Teenager schleicht leise, damit die Eltern nicht aufwachen.
nicht
not
die Eltern
the parents
leise
quiet / quietly
damit
so that
aufwachen
to wake up
der Teenager
the teenager
schleichen
to sneak
Questions & Answers about Der Teenager schleicht leise, damit die Eltern nicht aufwachen.
The current lesson is about using im Begriff sein. How could we use that phrase here to say the teenager is about to sneak?
You would conjugate sein for the teenager and add the zu + infinitive structure at the end of that main clause: Der Teenager ist im Begriff, leise zu schleichen, damit die Eltern nicht aufwachen.
Why does the sentence use damit instead of um ... zu to express "so that" or "in order to"?
You must use damit when the subject changes between the clauses. Here, the first subject is der Teenager and the second subject is die Eltern. If the teenager were sneaking so that he himself could achieve something, you would use um ... zu.
Since aufwachen is a separable verb, why is it written as one connected word at the end of the sentence?
Because damit introduces a subordinate clause, which forces the conjugated verb to the very end of the sentence. When the conjugated part (wachen) is pushed to the end, it bumps back into its prefix (auf) and they reconnect into a single word.
If this happened yesterday, what are the past tense forms of schleichen?
schleichen is an irregular verb. The simple past is schlich (Der Teenager schlich leise). For the present perfect, because it describes a movement from one place to another, it takes sein rather than haben, making it ist geschlichen (Der Teenager ist leise geschlichen).
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