Breakdown of Wir müssen sowohl unsere Solidarität als auch unser Mitgefühl ausdrücken.
wir
we
unser
our
müssen
to have to, must
sowohl ... als auch
both ... and
ausdrücken
to express
das Mitgefühl
the sympathy (compassion, empathy)
die Solidarität
the solidarity
Questions & Answers about Wir müssen sowohl unsere Solidarität als auch unser Mitgefühl ausdrücken.
Why use sowohl ... als auch instead of just und?
Sowohl [A] als auch [B] translates to "both [A] and [B]". It is a two-part conjunction used to emphasize that both elements are equally included. It gives the sentence a slightly more emphatic tone than a simple und (and).
How could I apply this lesson's topic to emphasize Mitgefühl (sympathy) in this sentence?
You could use the word tief (deep). While the prefix tief- is used to intensify adjectives (like tiefbetroffen for "deeply shocked"), for nouns you must use it as a standalone adjective. "Deep sympathy" is a very common, natural collocation in German: tiefes Mitgefühl.
Why does the sentence say unsere Solidarität but then unser Mitgefühl?
The possessive adjective must agree with the gender of each noun in the accusative case here. Nouns ending in -ität are always feminine, so we use unsere for die Solidarität. Nouns based on das Gefühl are neuter, so it takes the neuter accusative form unser for das Mitgefühl.
Ausdrücken is a separable verb. Why isn't the prefix aus split off and put at the very end of the sentence?
Because of the modal verb müssen. When a modal verb takes the second position in a main clause, it pushes the main action verb to the very end of the sentence in its full, unseparated infinitive form (ausdrücken).
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