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Wir machen heute einen kurzen Spaziergang im Park.

Wir machen heute einen kurzen Spaziergang im Park.
We go for a short walk in the park today.
FromLesson 13inHardcore German
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Breakdown of Wir machen heute einen kurzen Spaziergang im Park.

in
in
wir
we
heute
today
machen
to make
der Park
the park
der Spaziergang
the walk
kurz
short

Questions & Answers about Wir machen heute einen kurzen Spaziergang im Park.

Why is Spaziergang capitalized in the middle of the sentence?
In German all nouns are capitalized, no matter where they appear. That’s why Spaziergang, Park, and any other noun get an initial capital letter.
Why do we say einen kurzen Spaziergang instead of ein kurzer Spaziergang or some other form?

Spaziergang is the direct object of machen, so it takes the accusative case. For masculine nouns in the accusative:

  • The indefinite article ein becomes einen.
  • After an article, adjectives use the weak ending ‑en, so kurz becomes kurzen.
What does im stand for, and why not in den Park?
im is simply a contraction of in dem. You use the dative case (dem Park) to express location—wo?—meaning “in the park.” If you instead said in den Park, you’d be using the accusative to stress movement into the park—“into the park”—rather than describing where the walk takes place.
Why do we use machen with Spaziergang? Wouldn’t gehen make more sense for a walk?
German often pairs machen with certain nouns to form set phrases. einen Spaziergang machen literally means “to make a walk,” but idiomatically it’s “to take a walk.” You can also say Wir gehen heute im Park spazieren, using the separable verb spazierengehen. Both are correct and common.
Why is heute placed after the verb? Can I start the sentence with heute instead?

German follows the “verb-second” (V2) rule. The conjugated verb (machen) must occupy the second position. In Wir machen heute…, heute is the time adverbial in third position. If you want to emphasize heute, you can move it to first position:
“Heute machen wir einen kurzen Spaziergang im Park.”
The verb stays second; the subject shifts to third.

How would I form a comparative, like “a shorter walk”?

Turn kurz into its comparative kürzer, then apply the adjective ending for masculine accusative after an article:
“einen kürzeren Spaziergang.”
So you’d say:
“Wir machen heute einen kürzeren Spaziergang im Park.”

Can I strengthen kurzen with something like “very short walk”?

Yes. You’d insert sehr before the adjective:
“einen sehr kurzen Spaziergang.”
sehr remains uninflected because it’s an adverb modifying the adjective kurzen.

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“How do German cases work?”
German has four grammatical cases: nominative (subject), accusative (direct object), dative (indirect object), and genitive (possession). The case determines the form of articles and adjectives. For example, "the dog" is "der Hund" as a subject but "den Hund" as a direct object.

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