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Breakdown of Der Körper braucht viel Wasser.
das Wasser
the water
brauchen
to need
viel
a lot of
der Körper
the body
Questions & Answers about Der Körper braucht viel Wasser.
Why is Der used as the article for Körper?
Körper is a masculine noun in German. In the nominative singular, masculine nouns take the definite article Der. You can confirm this in any good German dictionary under the entry for Körper.
Why isn’t there an article before viel Wasser?
Wasser is treated as a mass (uncountable) noun here. With mass nouns, you often omit the article when you express an indefinite quantity and instead use words like viel (“a lot of”). If you said das Wasser, you would be referring to specific water you’ve already mentioned.
What case is viel Wasser, and how do you know?
viel Wasser is in the accusative case because it’s the direct object of the verb brauchen (“to need”). In German, when you need something, that something is in the accusative.
Why is it viel and not viele?
Viele with an “‑e” is used with countable, plural nouns (e.g., viele Bücher = “many books”). Wasser here is uncountable, so you use the undeclined form viel to mean “much” or “a lot of.”
How do you conjugate the verb brauchen for different pronouns?
Here’s the present-tense conjugation:
- ich brauche
- du brauchst
- er/sie/es braucht
- wir brauchen
- ihr braucht
- sie/Sie brauchen
In our sentence, braucht matches er/sie/es because Körper (“body”) is third person singular.
Why does braucht come second in the sentence, rather than at the end?
German main clauses follow the “verb-second” (V2) rule: the conjugated verb must be in the second position. Here Der Körper is the first position (the subject), and braucht is the second.
Why is Körper capitalized but braucht and viel are not?
In German, all nouns are capitalized, regardless of where they appear. Körper and Wasser are nouns, so they’re in uppercase. Verbs (braucht) and adjectives or adverbs (viel) are written in lowercase.
Could I replace braucht with benötigt?
Yes. benötigen is a more formal synonym of brauchen. You would say Der Körper benötigt viel Wasser. It means exactly the same but sounds a bit more formal or technical.
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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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