Auf meinem neuen Schreibtisch steht eine kleine Zimmerpflanze.

On my new desk there is a small house-plant.

Breakdown of Auf meinem neuen Schreibtisch steht eine kleine Zimmerpflanze.

• neu: new
• klein: small
• stehen: to stand
• auf: on
• mein: my
• der Schreibtisch: the desk
• die Zimmerpflanze: the house-plant

Questions & Answers about Auf meinem neuen Schreibtisch steht eine kleine Zimmerpflanze.

Why is auf followed by the dative case here instead of the accusative?

Auf is a two-way ( Wechsel- ) preposition that can take either dative or accusative. It takes dative when indicating a static location (“where?”) and accusative when indicating movement or direction (“where to?”). Since the sentence describes where the plant is standing (on the desk), you use the dative: auf meinem neuen Schreibtisch.

How do we get meinem neuen Schreibtisch? Specifically, why meinem and why neuen?

1. Schreibtisch is masculine.
2. Because auf expresses location here, we need the dative singular of a masculine noun.
3. The masculine definite article der becomes dem in the dative; a possessive pronoun (mein) is treated like an indefinite article, so mein becomes meinem.
4. After an article or possessive in the dative (and for all genders in the dative), adjectives always take the weak ending -en. Hence: meinem neuen Schreibtisch.

Why is eine kleine Zimmerpflanze in the nominative case?

In this sentence, eine kleine Zimmerpflanze is the subject of the verb steht. German subjects are in the nominative. Since Zimmerpflanze is feminine, the nominative singular indefinite article is eine, and the adjective klein takes the strong ending -e after an indefinite article in the nominative, giving eine kleine Zimmerpflanze.

Why does the verb steht come before the subject eine kleine Zimmerpflanze?

German main clauses follow the verb‐second (V2) rule: exactly one element (a word or phrase) appears before the finite verb, which must then occupy the second position. Here, the entire prepositional phrase Auf meinem neuen Schreibtisch counts as the first element, so the verb steht comes next, and the subject eine kleine Zimmerpflanze follows.

What’s the difference between using steht and liegt for describing where something is?

German has specific location verbs based on an object’s orientation:

• stehen for things that are upright (e.g. a vase, a plant in a pot)
• liegen for things that are lying flat (e.g. a book, a pen)
• sitzen for people or animals sitting (or objects on a chair)
  Since a potted plant stands upright, you use steht.

Why is Zimmerpflanze written as one word instead of two?

German commonly forms compound nouns by concatenating words. Zimmer (room) + Pflanze (plant) becomes Zimmerpflanze, literally “room-plant,” which we translate as “indoor plant” or “houseplant.”