Breakdown of Die Lehrerinnen arbeiten in der Schule.
arbeiten
to work
in
in
die Schule
the school
die Lehrerin
the teacher (female)
Questions & Answers about Die Lehrerinnen arbeiten in der Schule.
Why does Lehrerinnen have a double 'n' at the end?
The singular word for a female teacher is die Lehrerin, which adds -in to the male form der Lehrer. To make words ending in -in plural, German adds -nen. That creates the double 'n' in die Lehrerinnen (the female teachers).
Schule is a feminine word, so why does the sentence say der Schule instead of die Schule?
The word in is a preposition that can trigger a change in the words that follow it. Because the teachers are working at a fixed location (answering the question 'where?'), the sentence uses the dative case. In the dative case, the feminine die changes to der.
Why does the verb end in -en (arbeiten) instead of -t (arbeitet)?
The ending of the verb has to match the subject of the sentence. Since die Lehrerinnen is plural ('they'), we use the plural verb ending -en. If it were just one female teacher, the sentence would be: Die Lehrerin arbeitet.