Breakdown of Meine Schwester studiert in Berlin.
in
in
mein
my; (masculine or neuter, nominative)
die Schwester
the sister
Berlin
Berlin
Questions & Answers about Meine Schwester studiert in Berlin.
Why is Schwester capitalized, and why does Meine also start with a capital letter?
In German, all nouns are capitalized, no matter where they appear in the sentence.
Schwester is a noun, so it always takes a capital S: die Schwester.
Meine is not capitalized because it’s a possessive pronoun; normally it would be written with a lowercase m (meine Schwester).
Here it appears at the beginning of the sentence, and in German (as in English), the first word of a sentence is capitalized. That’s why we see Meine Schwester.
Why is it meine Schwester and not mein Schwester?
The form of mein- changes according to the gender, number, and case of the noun.
- The noun Schwester is feminine singular.
- In this sentence, Schwester is the subject, so it is in the nominative case.
For a feminine singular nominative noun, mein- takes the ending -e: meine Schwester.
Compare:
- mein Bruder (my brother – masculine nominative)
- meine Schwester (my sister – feminine nominative)
- mein Auto (my car – neuter nominative)
- meine Freunde (my friends – plural nominative)
How do I know that is feminine?