Ich sehe meine Nachbarin im Garten.

I see my neighbor in the garden.

Breakdown of Ich sehe meine Nachbarin im Garten.

• in: in
• ich: I
• sehen: to see
• der Garten: the garden
• mein: my
• die Nachbarin: the neighbor

Questions & Answers about Ich sehe meine Nachbarin im Garten.

Why is the verb sehen in the form sehe here?

German verbs change their ending depending on person and number. sehen in the present tense is conjugated as:

• ich sehe
• du siehst
• er/sie/es sieht
  Since the subject is ich (I), you use sehe.

What’s the difference between sehen, schauen, and ansehen?

• sehen = to perceive with your eyes (to see, often passive).
• schauen (or gucken) = to look in a certain direction (to glance or watch).
• ansehen = to look at something deliberately (to watch or inspect).
If you want to express “I’m looking at my neighbor,” you’d use the separable verb ansehen (see next question).

If I want to say “I’m looking at my neighbor in the garden,” how would the sentence change?

Use the separable verb ansehen. In present tense, the prefix an goes to the end:
Ich sehe meine Nachbarin im Garten an.

Why is meine Nachbarin not just Nachbarin?

German generally requires a determiner (article or possessive) before a singular count noun. Here you’re specifying my neighbor, so you need the possessive meine. Without it, Nachbarin alone would sound incomplete.

Why is the possessive mein changed to meine?

Because Nachbarin is a feminine noun, and in both nominative and accusative singular the possessive takes -e:

• ich sehe meine Nachbarin (accusative, feminine)
  If it were masculine or neuter, the ending would differ.

Why is meine Nachbarin in the accusative case?

The verb sehen acts on a direct object (who or what is seen). In German, direct objects take the accusative case. Here my neighbor is the direct object, so it’s accusative.

What case is im Garten, and why?

im is a contraction of in dem. With in you use:

• the accusative case for movement toward something (e.g. in den Garten “into the garden”)
• the dative case for location (e.g. in dem Garten “in the garden”)
  Since this sentence describes where you see her (location), you use dative: im Garten.

Why don’t we say in den Garten here?

in den Garten (accusative) would imply motion into the garden. But in Ich sehe meine Nachbarin im Garten, there is no movement—only location—so you use the dative form im Garten.

Why is Nachbarin capitalized?

In German all nouns are capitalized, regardless of where they appear in a sentence. Nachbarin (neighbor) and Garten (garden) both are nouns, so they must start with uppercase letters.

How would the sentence change if the neighbor were male?

You would switch to the masculine forms in accusative:
Ich sehe meinen Nachbarn im Garten.
Here Nachbar becomes Nachbarn (accusative singular ends in -n), and mein becomes meinen for masculine accusative.