Word
Die Eltern von Karl kommen heute.
Meaning
Karl's parents are coming today.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Die Eltern von Karl kommen heute.
kommen
to come
heute
today
die Eltern
the parents
von
from, of / by (agent in passive clauses)
Questions & Answers about Die Eltern von Karl kommen heute.
Why does this say Die Eltern von Karl instead of Karls Eltern?
Both are perfectly correct! Karls Eltern translates directly to "Karl's parents" (notice that German does not use an apostrophe here). However, using von plus the name (literally "The parents of Karl") is an alternative that is very common, especially in everyday spoken German.
Why doesn't the name Karl change, since von is a dative preposition?
Most names of people and cities do not get any special endings in the dative case. Even though the preposition von always forces the dative case, the name Karl simply stays exactly as it is.
Is the verb kommen in the right place? It looks like it is the fifth word in the sentence.
Yes, it is in the correct place! In regular German statements, the conjugated verb must be in the second position. Here, the entire phrase Die Eltern von Karl acts as a single block that takes up the first position. Therefore, the verb kommen takes the second position right after it.
Could I start the sentence with heute instead?
Absolutely. If you want to emphasize when they are arriving, you can put the time word heute in the first position. Just remember to keep the verb in position two, which means the subject moves after the verb: Heute kommen die Eltern von Karl.