Learn Hardcore German: In einer Demokratie lehnen viele Menschen Gewalt ab und suchen nach Worten. - In a democracy many people reject violence and look for words.

The preposition in
In is a two-way preposition in German.
- With location/state (where?), it takes the dative case.
- With movement/direction (where to?), it takes the accusative case.
Here it means in a democracy (as a kind of system / environment) → a state, not movement → dative.
Gender of Demokratie
Demokratie is feminine (die Demokratie).
The dative singular feminine of the indefinite article is einer.
- Nominative: eine Demokratie
- Dative: einer Demokratie
Indefinite vs. definite
Einer is indefinite (“a democracy, in general”), not a specific, unique democracy.
Der Demokratie would mean the democracy, as if talking about one specific known democracy.

So: in + feminine noun + location meaning → in einer Demokratie.

Why does the sentence start with In einer Demokratie instead of Viele Menschen?

German main clauses follow a verb-second rule:

Exactly one element (word or phrase) comes before the finite verb.
Then the finite verb (here: lehnen) comes.
Everything else follows.

Both of these are possible:

In einer Demokratie lehnen viele Menschen Gewalt ab.
Viele Menschen lehnen in einer Demokratie Gewalt ab.

The difference is in emphasis / information structure:

Starting with In einer Demokratie highlights the political system, the context in which the statement is true.
Starting with Viele Menschen would highlight the people instead.

In both cases, the verb lehnen must stay in second position in the clause.

Why is it lehnen … ab instead of just lehnen or ablehnen?

Ablehnen is a separable-prefix verb:

Infinitive: ablehnen
Finite verb in a main clause: the prefix ab moves to the end of the clause.

So:

Infinitive: Gewalt ablehnen (to reject violence)
Present tense, they: Sie lehnen Gewalt ab.

In the sentence:

Finite verb: lehnen (3rd person plural)
Separable prefix: ab at the end of the clause

So lehnen … ab together means to reject.
Lehnen alone mostly means “to lean” and does not mean “to reject” without the prefix.

What case is Gewalt in, and why is there no article?

Case
Gewalt is the direct object of lehnen ab, so it is in the accusative case.
- Verb: ablehnen (to reject)
- Direct object: Gewalt (what is being rejected)
No article
Gewalt is an abstract, uncountable noun (violence as a general concept).
In German, such nouns often omit the article when used in a general sense:
- Viele Menschen lehnen Gewalt ab. = Many people reject violence in general.
- With an article, the meaning changes slightly:
  - die Gewalt = the (specific / known) violence
  - jede Gewalt = every kind of violence
  - jegliche Gewalt = any violence whatsoever

Here, the speaker means violence in general, so no article is natural.

Why is it lehnen viele Menschen and not viele Menschen lehnen? Isn’t the subject supposed to come before the verb?

In German main clauses, the rule is verb in second position, not “subject first”.

The structure here is:

In einer Demokratie – first element (a prepositional phrase)
lehnen – finite verb in second position
viele Menschen – subject
Gewalt ab – object + separable prefix
und suchen nach Worten – second predicate with coordination

So the subject viele Menschen does not need to be in first position; it just needs to be somewhere after the finite verb as long as the verb stays second.

If you start with the subject, it also works:

Viele Menschen lehnen in einer Demokratie Gewalt ab und suchen nach Worten.

Same meaning, different emphasis.

What is the function of und suchen nach Worten? Is that a new sentence?

Und suchen nach Worten is the second part of a coordinated predicate sharing the same subject.

Full underlying structure:

In einer Demokratie lehnen viele Menschen Gewalt ab und (viele Menschen) suchen nach Worten.

Because the subject viele Menschen is the same, it is not repeated after und.

Grammatically:

und is a coordinating conjunction.
It connects two finite verbs/predicates:
- lehnen … ab
- suchen nach Worten

Each part behaves like a full clause, but the second is elliptical (subject omitted because it is understood).

Why is it suchen nach Worten and not just Worte suchen?

The verb suchen can work in two ways:

Transitive (direct object, no preposition)
- Sie suchen ihre Schlüssel. – They are looking for their keys.
- Er sucht einen neuen Job. – He is looking for a new job.
With the preposition nach = suchen nach + dative
- Sie suchen nach einer Lösung. – They are searching for a solution.
- Er sucht nach Informationen.

Nach Worten suchen is a fixed, very idiomatic expression meaning:

to search for the right words
to be at a loss for words and trying to find them

You could theoretically say Worte suchen, but:

nach Worten suchen sounds more natural and idiomatic when you mean “searching for appropriate words / a way to express something”.

Also note: with nach, the noun must be in the dative case → nach Worten.

Why is it nach Worten and not nach Wörter or nach Wörtern? What’s the difference between Wörter and Worte?

Several things are happening at once:

Case
The preposition nach always takes the dative:
- nach + dative plural of Wort → nach Worten or (in other contexts) nach Wörtern.
Two plural forms of das Wort
Das Wort has two valid plurals with different usual meanings:
- Wörter: separate, countable words, seen as individual units
  - e.g. vocabulary items, number of words in a text
- Worte: words as part of an utterance, speech, or statement as a whole
  - e.g. someone’s words, expressions, formulations
Typical examples:
- fremde Wörter lernen – learn foreign words (as vocabulary)
- mit wenigen Worten erklären – explain in a few words (as a short statement)
- seine letzten Worte – his last words
Dative plural endings
Dative plural generally adds -n to the plural form:
- Plural Wörter → dative plural Wörtern
- Plural Worte → dative plural Worten

In the phrase nach Worten suchen, Worte is used in the sense of formulations/expressions, not individual vocabulary items, so the dative plural becomes Worten.

So:

nach Wörtern suchen = search for specific individual words (e.g. in a text)
nach Worten suchen = search for words to express something (the idiom used here)

Why is it viele Menschen and not viel Menschen?

The difference is:

viele – used with countable plural nouns
viel – used with uncountable (mass) nouns or in the singular for “a lot of”

Examples:

viele Menschen, viele Bücher, viele Probleme
viel Wasser, viel Zeit, viel Geld

Since Menschen (people) are countable, German uses the plural quantifier viele:

viele Menschen = many people

Viel Menschen is grammatically wrong in standard German.

Could we also say In der Demokratie lehnen viele Menschen Gewalt ab? Would that change the meaning?

Yes, In der Demokratie is grammatically possible, but it changes the nuance:

In einer Demokratie …
- Refers to a democracy in general, any democracy as a type of political system.
- It is a general statement about democracies.
In der Demokratie …
- Refers to the democracy – usually some specific democracy that speaker and listener both know (for example, the political system of a particular country).
- Sounds more like talking about one concrete, known system.

So:

In einer Demokratie lehnen viele Menschen Gewalt ab …
→ In a democracy (as a general concept), many people reject violence and look for words.

If the intention is a general principle about democracies, einer is the natural choice.