Ich renne oft im Park, aber heute renne ich ohne Schuhe auf dem weichen Teppich.

I often run in the park, but today I run without shoes on the soft carpet.

Breakdown of Ich renne oft im Park, aber heute renne ich ohne Schuhe auf dem weichen Teppich.

• in: in
• dem: the; (masculine or neuter, dative)
• ich: I
• heute: today

Questions & Answers about Ich renne oft im Park, aber heute renne ich ohne Schuhe auf dem weichen Teppich.

Why is in dem contracted to im in im Park?

im is simply the contraction of in dem used before masculine or neuter nouns in the dative case. It’s very common in spoken and written German to merge them into one word.

Why is Park in the dative case with im?

The preposition in is a Wechselpräposition (two-way preposition). When it indicates location (answering “wo?”), you use the dative case. Since you are running inside the park (a location), you say im Park (dative).

Why do we say auf dem weichen Teppich and not auf den?

auf is also a two-way preposition. Here it shows where you are running (location), so you use dative. Teppich is masculine, so the dative singular article is dem. That gives you auf dem Teppich.

Why does weich get the ending -en in weichen Teppich?

With a definite article that already marks gender and case (here dem), adjectives take the weak declension. In dative masculine singular, the weak ending is -en, so weich → weichen.