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Questions & Answers about Meine Mutter hat gestern Abend eine große Überraschung für meinen Vater vorbereitet.
What tense is used in the sentence, and how is it formed?
The sentence uses the perfect tense. It is formed by combining the auxiliary verb hat (from haben) with the past participle vorbereitet, indicating that the action was completed in the past.
What is the role of the time expression gestern Abend in this sentence?
Gestern Abend means "last night" and specifies when the action took place. In German, time expressions often follow the finite verb, providing temporal context within the sentence structure.
Why is meinen Vater used instead of mein Vater?
The preposition für requires the accusative case. In the accusative, the masculine noun Vater takes the form meinen Vater. This change reflects German case rules for prepositional phrases.
How do the adjective endings work in the phrase eine große Überraschung?
Here, Überraschung is a feminine noun in the accusative case. With the indefinite article eine, the adjective große takes an ending that matches a feminine singular noun in the accusative. This is a typical example of adjective declension in German.
Can you explain the overall structure of this sentence?
Certainly. The sentence follows a typical German word order: the subject (Meine Mutter) comes first, followed by the auxiliary verb (hat). Then you have a time expression (gestern Abend), after which the direct object is placed (eine große Überraschung). A prepositional phrase (für meinen Vater) follows, and finally, the past participle (vorbereitet) comes at the end. This positioning—especially with the finite verb in second position and the participle at the end—is characteristic of German main clauses in the perfect tense.
What is the English translation of this sentence?
The sentence translates to: "My mother prepared a big surprise for my father last night."
Why is the auxiliary verb hat used instead of ist in this context?
In German, transitive verbs (those taking a direct object) use haben as the auxiliary in the perfect tense. Since vorbereiten is a transitive verb, the auxiliary hat is correctly used instead of ist.