Breakdown of Die Kinder zeichnen Tiere im Notizbuch.
Questions & Answers about Die Kinder zeichnen Tiere im Notizbuch.
- Kind means child (singular), and its article is das:
- das Kind = the child
- Kinder is the plural:
- die Kinder = the children
In German, all plural nouns take die in the nominative (subject) case, no matter what gender the singular form has.
So:
- singular: das Kind (neuter)
- plural: die Kinder (plural ⇒ article die)
The verb must agree with the subject:
- Subject: die Kinder = they (third person plural)
- Verb: zeichnen is the 3rd person plural form of zeichnen.
Conjugation in the present tense:
- ich zeichne – I draw
- du zeichnest – you draw
- er/sie/es zeichnet – he/she/it draws
- wir zeichnen – we draw
- ihr zeichnet – you (plural) draw
- sie zeichnen – they draw
Because die Kinder = sie (they), you use zeichnen.
In German, a bare plural (plural without an article) often means “some …” in a general or indefinite sense.
- Die Kinder zeichnen Tiere.
= The children are drawing animals / (some) animals (not specific which ones).
If you say:
- Die Kinder zeichnen die Tiere.
= The children are drawing the animals (specific, known animals).
You could also be more explicit and say:
- Die Kinder zeichnen einige Tiere. – The children are drawing some animals.
- Die Kinder zeichnen viele Tiere. – The children are drawing many animals.
But it’s perfectly natural to drop the article for an indefinite plural like Tiere.
Both are often translated as “to draw”, but there is a nuance:
- zeichnen – to draw with a pen, pencil, marker, etc. (lines, sketches)
- malen – to paint / color with paint, crayons, colored pencils, etc.
So:
- Die Kinder zeichnen Tiere. – They are drawing animals (line drawings).
- Die Kinder malen Tiere. – They are painting/colouring animals (with colors).
In everyday speech, some people mix them, but the basic distinction is tools/technique.
Tiere is the direct object of the verb zeichnen.
→ It is in the accusative plural: Tiere.im Notizbuch is a prepositional phrase with in indicating location (“in the notebook”).
With in- location (where?), German uses the dative case:
- Notizbuch is neuter singular, dative is dem Notizbuch, and in + dem becomes im.
So:
- Tiere → accusative plural
- Notizbuch (in im Notizbuch) → dative singular (neuter)
im is a contraction of in dem:
- in (in) + dem (the, dative singular, masculine/neuter) → im
So:
- in dem Notizbuch = in the notebook
- im Notizbuch = in the notebook (shorter, more natural)
Both are grammatically correct, but the contracted form im is what you usually say in everyday German.
The preposition in can take dative or accusative, depending on the meaning:
- Dative → location, answering “where?”
- Accusative → direction / movement, answering “where to?”
In this sentence, the children are already drawing in the notebook (location), not moving something into it:
- Die Kinder zeichnen Tiere im Notizbuch.
– Where are they drawing? in the notebook → dative → im (in dem) Notizbuch
If you talk about movement into the notebook, you would use accusative:
- Die Kinder kleben Bilder ins Notizbuch.
(ins = in + das; direction “into the notebook”)
In German, all nouns are capitalized, no matter where they occur in the sentence.
- Notizbuch is a noun → it must start with a capital letter.
- Kinder, Tiere, Buch, Haus, Freund, etc., are also capitalized.
Verbs (zeichnen), adjectives (groß, klein), and most other words are written in lowercase, except at the beginning of a sentence.
Yes, German word order is flexible, as long as you respect the verb in second position rule in main clauses.
All of these are possible and correct, with slightly different emphasis:
Die Kinder zeichnen Tiere im Notizbuch.
– Neutral; normal order: subject–verb–object–place.Die Kinder zeichnen im Notizbuch Tiere.
– Neutral to slightly emphasizing “in the notebook”.Im Notizbuch zeichnen die Kinder Tiere.
– Emphasis on “In the notebook…” (contrast: maybe not on the table, but in the notebook).
In all cases, the finite verb (zeichnen) stays in second position in the sentence (counting whole phrases as one “slot”).
Key points:
ie in Kinder:
- Kin-der – i is short here (because of the double consonant nd).
- Pronounced roughly like KIN-der.
ei in zeichnen:
- ei sounds like the English “eye”.
- zeichnen ≈ TS-EYE-chn-en (the ch is soft, like in “ich”).
ch in zeichnen:
- This is the soft “ich-sound” [ç], like in ich, Licht.
- Not like the hard “k” in “Bach” or “Loch”.
Notizbuch:
- No-TIITS-buch
- o like in “no”, u in Buch is like the long “oo” in “boot”, but ch is again the soft [ç] sound after a front vowel (actually here it’s after u, so many speakers use the hard , but learners are usually taught [uːx]).
More approximate English-style: DEE KIN-der TS-EYE-chn-en NOH-TEETS-boo(ch).
Plural of Notizbuch is Notizbücher.
For in the notebooks (location), you need dative plural:
- die Notizbücher (nominative/accusative plural)
- den Notizbüchern (dative plural)
So:
- Die Kinder zeichnen Tiere in den Notizbüchern.
or with a contraction (less common here, because there is no standard contraction): you usually keep it as in den Notizbüchern.
If you just want to say in notebooks in general (not specific notebooks):
- Die Kinder zeichnen Tiere in Notizbüchern. (no article, plural indefinite)
You would make Tiere definite by adding die:
- Die Kinder zeichnen die Tiere im Notizbuch.
Now:
- die Tiere = the animals (specific, known animals)
- im Notizbuch is still in the notebook (same as before)
So the focus shifts from “some animals” to “the (particular) animals.”