Breakdown of Das Praktikum ist kurz, aber die Chefin wirkt sehr seriös und freundlich.
Questions & Answers about Das Praktikum ist kurz, aber die Chefin wirkt sehr seriös und freundlich.
Praktikum is grammatically neuter in German, so it always takes the article das in the singular:
- das Praktikum – the internship (singular)
- die Praktika / die Praktiken – the internships (plural; both plurals are used)
There isn’t a simple “always true” rule you can apply to all ‑um nouns, but many loanwords in ‑um (from Latin) are neuter:
das Museum, das Zentrum, das Studium, das Praktikum.
So you simply have to learn Praktikum = neuter = das.
No. Praktikum is a bit of a false friend.
- das Praktikum = an internship / work placement / work experience (usually for students or trainees)
- A person doing it is der Praktikant / die Praktikantin = intern
“Practice” in other senses is different:
- to practise (BrE) / practice (AmE) → üben
I practise the piano → Ich übe Klavier. - a doctor’s practice → die Praxis (des Arztes)
So in this sentence, Das Praktikum ist kurz = The internship is short (in duration), not The practice is short.
Both are possible, but they’re doing different things grammatically.
In the given sentence:
- Das Praktikum ist kurz. – The internship is short.
Here, kurz is a predicate adjective (used after a verb like sein “to be”). Predicate adjectives in German do not take endings:
- Das Praktikum ist kurz.
- Die Chefin ist freundlich.
- Der Film war lang.
If you put the adjective before the noun, it becomes an attributive adjective and then it needs an ending:
- Das kurze Praktikum ist interessant. – The short internship is interesting.
So:
- ist kurz = “is short” (no ending)
- das kurze Praktikum = “the short internship” (with ‑e ending)
aber is a coordinating conjunction meaning “but”.
In this sentence:
- Das Praktikum ist kurz, aber die Chefin wirkt sehr seriös und freundlich.
It connects two main clauses:
- Das Praktikum ist kurz.
- Die Chefin wirkt sehr seriös und freundlich.
Because aber is coordinating, the word order in each clause stays normal main‑clause order: the finite verb is in second position:
- Das Praktikum ist kurz
- die Chefin wirkt sehr seriös und freundlich
So aber does not push the verb to the end or anything like that; it just links the two clauses, and German writes a comma before it.
The verb here is wirken, and in this context it means:
- to appear / to seem / to come across (as)
So:
- Die Chefin wirkt sehr seriös und freundlich.
≈ The (female) boss seems / comes across as very serious and friendly.
It is not the normal verb for “to work” (that is arbeiten):
- Sie arbeitet viel. – She works a lot.
Other common meanings of wirken:
- Medikamente wirken. – Medicines are effective / take effect.
- Das wirkt komisch. – That comes across as strange / looks weird.
So memorise:
- arbeiten = to work (at a job, on something)
- wirken = to have an effect; to appear / seem
Chef is the word for a boss, manager, person in charge (not only a cook).
German marks grammatical gender on many job titles and roles:
- der Chef – male boss
- die Chefin – female boss
So:
- die Chefin here means the female boss / manager.
Similarly:
- der Praktikant – male intern
- die Praktikantin – female intern
Note that der Chefkoch / die Chefköchin would be a “head chef” (in the kitchen), but Chef / Chefin alone usually just means “boss” in a workplace.
In a normal German statement, the finite verb is in second position in the clause (the V2 rule).
Second position means:
- 1st slot: usually the subject (or some other element)
- 2nd slot: the conjugated verb
So:
- Die Chefin (slot 1 – subject)
- wirkt (slot 2 – verb)
- sehr seriös und freundlich (rest of the sentence)
Wirkt die Chefin ...? would be a yes–no question:
- Wirkt die Chefin sehr seriös und freundlich?
– Does the boss seem very serious and friendly?
So:
- Statement: Die Chefin wirkt ...
- Question: Wirkt die Chefin ...?
Structure:
- wirkt sehr seriös und freundlich
Here’s what is going on:
- seriös and freundlich are predicate adjectives linked by und.
- sehr directly modifies seriös, but in practice it usually intensifies the whole description.
You can interpret it as:
- literally: seems very serious and friendly
- pragmatically: she seems very serious and (also) friendly.
You could also say:
- wirkt sehr freundlich und seriös – same idea, just different order.
- wirkt seriös und sehr freundlich – here sehr clearly applies only to freundlich.
All these adjectives stay uninflected (no endings) because they’re after the verb wirkt (predicate position).
Not exactly. seriös is a bit tricky and often a false friend.
Common meanings of seriös:
- respectable, reputable (not shady)
- professional, trustworthy
- dignified, earnest
So eine seriöse Firma = a reputable company, not a company that never jokes.
In Die Chefin wirkt sehr seriös und freundlich, it most likely means:
- She seems professional, respectable, not dodgy, and also friendly.
For “serious” in the sense of strict, not playful, German often uses:
- ernst – serious (in mood, expression)
- streng – strict
- humorlos – humourless (no sense of humour)
So be careful: seriös ≠ just “serious” in the emotional sense.
The comma is there because aber is linking two independent main clauses:
- Das Praktikum ist kurz
- die Chefin wirkt sehr seriös und freundlich
German comma rules are stricter than English. When you join two full clauses with a coordinating conjunction like aber, und, oder, denn, you normally:
must put a comma before it if both sides are full clauses with their own verb:
- Das Praktikum ist kurz, aber die Chefin wirkt sehr seriös und freundlich.
If you just link two words or phrases, you don’t use a comma:
- seriös und freundlich – no comma
In German, all nouns are capitalized, regardless of where they appear in the sentence.
- das Praktikum – noun, so capital P
- die Chefin – noun, so capital C
Adjectives and verbs are not capitalized in normal running text:
- kurz, seriös, freundlich, wirkt, ist – all lowercase.
So capitalization is a strong hint for you that a word is a noun.