Im Winter fällt manchmal viel Schnee in der Stadt.

In winter a lot of snow sometimes falls in the city.

Breakdown of Im Winter fällt manchmal viel Schnee in der Stadt.

• in: in
• die Stadt: the city
• manchmal: sometimes
• der Winter: the winter
• fallen: to fall
• viel: a lot of
• der Schnee: the snow

Questions & Answers about Im Winter fällt manchmal viel Schnee in der Stadt.

Why is Im used instead of In dem?

Im is simply the contraction of in + dem. Since der Winter is masculine, the preposition in (when indicating time or static location) requires the dative, so in dem Winter becomes im Winter.

Why isn’t there a dummy subject es, as in “Es fällt Schnee”?

With fallen the thing that falls (here viel Schnee) is the real grammatical subject in the nominative. You could say “Es fällt Schnee,” but when you make “viel Schnee” your subject, you drop the impersonal es:
• Viel Schnee fällt … (“A lot of snow falls …”)

Why is manchmal placed after the verb rather than at the very beginning?

German word order is flexible but follows rules for adverbs of frequency:

1. If a time expression (Im Winter) is in first position, the verb still sits in second.
2. Frequency adverbs like manchmal typically follow immediately after the finite verb.
   So: Im Winter (time) – fällt (verb) – manchmal (frequency) – …

Why do we say viel Schnee and not viele Schnee or vieler Schnee?

• Schnee is a mass (uncountable) noun in German, so it never takes a plural form here.
• viel is a quantifier for uncountable nouns and remains undeclined in this context.
Therefore, viel Schnee = “a lot of snow.”

Why is in der Stadt in the dative case?

The preposition in governs dative when it expresses a static location (answering “where?”). Since falling snow describes something happening in the city (a location), we use the dative: in + der Stadt.

Couldn’t we say Im Winter schneit es manchmal viel instead of using fällt?

You could say Im Winter schneit es manchmal stark in der Stadt (“In winter, it sometimes snows heavily in the city”).
• schneien is an impersonal weather verb (“to snow,” always with es).
• fallen (“to fall”) lets viel Schnee be the subject, so you don’t need es and you emphasize the quantity of snow that falls.

Why does in der Stadt come at the end of the sentence?

German typically orders adverbials and complements as Time – Manner – Place (TMP). Here:

1. Im Winter (time)
2. manchmal (manner/frequency)
3. viel Schnee (what falls)
4. in der Stadt (place)
   Putting the place last follows the natural TMP flow in German.