Breakdown of In meiner Heimatstadt gibt es viele Künstlerinnen, die ihren Beruf lieben.
Questions & Answers about In meiner Heimatstadt gibt es viele Künstlerinnen, die ihren Beruf lieben.
The preposition in can take either dative or accusative:
- Dative = location (where something is)
- Accusative = movement (where something is going to)
In this sentence, we are talking about where the artists exist, a static location:
- In meiner Heimatstadt = in my hometown (location → dative)
Heimatstadt is feminine, singular. Feminine dative singular of meine is meiner, so you get:
- Nominative: meine Heimatstadt
- Dative: in meiner Heimatstadt
Es gibt is a fixed expression meaning there is / there are.
Grammatically, es is a dummy subject, and gibt is the 3rd person singular of geben (to give), but you normally just learn es gibt as a unit: there is/are.
Default word order:
- Es gibt viele Künstlerinnen. – There are many (female) artists.
In your sentence, something is moved to the start for emphasis:
- In meiner Heimatstadt gibt es viele Künstlerinnen …
Here, In meiner Heimatstadt is a fronted adverbial (goes to position 1). The verb (gibt) must stay in position 2, and es comes after it:
- Position 1: In meiner Heimatstadt
- Position 2: gibt
- Then: es viele Künstlerinnen …
You could also say:
- Es gibt in meiner Heimatstadt viele Künstlerinnen …
This is also correct; it just changes the rhythm/emphasis slightly.
German distinguishes between:
- viel = much / a lot of (uncountable things: water, money, time)
- viele = many (countable things: people, chairs, books)
Since Künstlerinnen (artists) are countable, you must use viele:
- viele Künstlerinnen = many (female) artists
- viel Wasser = much water
So viel Künstlerinnen is incorrect.
- der Künstler = male artist (singular)
- die Künstlerin = female artist (singular)
- die Künstler = artists (plural, traditionally “generic masculine” or all-male group)
- die Künstlerinnen = female artists (plural)
In your sentence, Künstlerinnen clearly refers only to women.
In more traditional usage, die Künstler could mean “artists (men and women)”. In modern, inclusive language, people often say Künstlerinnen und Künstler to explicitly include everyone.
In German, all relative clauses are separated from the main clause by a comma.
die ihren Beruf lieben is a relative clause describing Künstlerinnen. So you must write:
- … viele Künstlerinnen, die ihren Beruf lieben.
Rule: A comma is required before relative pronouns such as der, die, das, welche, welcher, welches, wer, etc. There is no choice here; without the comma, it’s simply incorrect in standard German.
In this part of the sentence, die is not the article. It is a relative pronoun.
It refers back to Künstlerinnen and introduces the relative clause:
- viele Künstlerinnen, die ihren Beruf lieben
→ many (female) artists who love their job
Grammatically:
- Antecedent: Künstlerinnen (plural, feminine, nominative)
- Relative pronoun: die (nominative plural)
- Verb: lieben (3rd person plural, agreeing with die / Künstlerinnen)
So die here means who, not “the”.
die ihren Beruf lieben is a subordinate clause (specifically a relative clause) introduced by the relative pronoun die.
In German subordinate clauses, the conjugated verb goes to the end:
Main clause: Sie lieben ihren Beruf. – They love their job.
(verb in 2nd position)Relative clause: … die ihren Beruf lieben. – … who love their job.
(verb at the end)
So the word order die ihren Beruf lieben is required by the rule “verb-last in subordinate clauses”.
ihren is the possessive pronoun ihr in the masculine accusative singular form.
Break it down:
- Beruf is masculine: der Beruf.
- In the clause die ihren Beruf lieben, Beruf is the direct object of lieben, so it is accusative.
- Masculine accusative singular for ihr is ihren.
Declension of ihr (possessive, “her/their”) with a masculine noun:
- Nominative: ihr Beruf (her/their job is interesting)
- Accusative: ihren Beruf (she/they love her/their job)
Key idea: In German, possessive pronouns agree with the noun they describe, not with the owner.
So even though the owners are plural (Künstlerinnen), the thing they own (Beruf) is singular and masculine, so we use ihren (masc. acc. sg.), not ihr.
German usually expresses “each has their own X” with a singular noun:
- die ihren Beruf lieben
Literally: who love their (own) profession
Interpret: each artist loves her own profession.
Using ihre Berufe would technically mean “their professions” (plural professions), which sounds like each person has several professions, or the group has multiple professions collectively. That’s a different meaning and not what is normally intended.
So ihren Beruf is natural and idiomatic here.
Yes, but you must change the verb to match singular or plural:
Plural:
viele Künstlerinnen, die ihren Beruf lieben
→ many female artists who love their job
(die = relative pronoun, plural; lieben = 3rd person plural)Singular:
eine Künstlerin, die ihren Beruf liebt
→ a female artist who loves her job
(die = relative pronoun, feminine singular; liebt = 3rd person singular)
So for a singular Künstlerin, the correct form is die ihren Beruf liebt (with liebt, not lieben).
Yes, that is grammatically correct:
- In meiner Heimatstadt gibt es viele Künstlerinnen.
- Viele Künstlerinnen gibt es in meiner Heimatstadt.
Both sentences mean the same thing. German word order is flexible as long as the finite verb stays in position 2 in main clauses.
The difference is emphasis:
In meiner Heimatstadt gibt es viele Künstlerinnen …
→ Emphasis on the place (In my hometown …)Viele Künstlerinnen gibt es in meiner Heimatstadt …
→ Emphasis on the number/amount (There are many female artists …)
Both versions are fine; choose based on what you want to highlight.
- die Stadt = city / town (neutral, just the place)
- die Heimat = homeland, home region, place you feel at home
- die Heimatstadt = (literally) “home-city” → the town/city you come from and feel attached to
So In meiner Heimatstadt is not just “in my city” but “in my hometown”, with an emotional or personal connection implied.