Diese Farbe bedeutet Gefahr.

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Breakdown of Diese Farbe bedeutet Gefahr.

• die Farbe: the color
• die Gefahr: the danger
• bedeuten: to mean

Questions & Answers about Diese Farbe bedeutet Gefahr.

Why is it diese and not dieses or dieser?

Because Farbe is feminine. The demonstrative dies- agrees with the gender, number, and case of the noun it modifies.

• Masculine nominative singular: dieser Mann
• Feminine nominative singular: diese Farbe
• Neuter nominative/accusative singular: dieses Wort
• Plural nominative/accusative (all genders): diese Farben

What cases are used here?

• Diese Farbe is the subject, so it’s nominative singular (feminine).
• Gefahr is the direct object of bedeutet, so it’s accusative singular (feminine). You don’t see any case ending on bare nouns like Gefahr, and for feminine singular, articles look the same in nominative and accusative anyway (e.g., die Gefahr, eine Gefahr), so context and the verb tell you the roles.

Why is there no article before Gefahr?

German often omits the article with abstract or generic nouns in statements of classification or meaning. Here, Gefahr is meant as the concept “danger,” so no article is natural: Diese Farbe bedeutet Gefahr.

• If you say bedeutet eine Gefahr, it means “poses/constitutes a danger,” often a specific or countable danger.
• bedeutet die Gefahr would refer to some previously defined specific danger and is unusual in this sentence type.

Could I say bedeutet eine Gefahr instead?