Breakdown of Meine Tochter ist Schülerin in der Grundschule und lernt dort Lesen und Schreiben.
Questions & Answers about Meine Tochter ist Schülerin in der Grundschule und lernt dort Lesen und Schreiben.
In German, possessive words like mein (my) change their ending to agree with the gender, number, and case of the noun.
- Tochter (daughter) is:
- gender: feminine
- number: singular
- case here: nominative (subject of the sentence)
For a feminine nominative singular noun, mein becomes meine:
- mein Sohn (my son – masculine nominative)
- meine Tochter (my daughter – feminine nominative)
- mein Kind (my child – neuter nominative)
- meine Kinder (my children – plural nominative)
So Meine Tochter is the correct form because Tochter is feminine.
Professions and roles used after sein (to be) often omit the article in German:
- Sie ist Lehrerin. – She is a (female) teacher.
- Er ist Arzt. – He is a doctor.
- Meine Tochter ist Schülerin. – My daughter is a (female) pupil.
You can say ist eine Schülerin, but it sounds a bit more specific or emphasizing the classification (for example, in contrast to being something else). In neutral statements of occupation or status, German usually drops the article.
So both are grammatically correct, but ist Schülerin is the most natural here.
Both words mean “female student”, but they are used at different education levels:
- Schülerin = female pupil at school (primary/secondary school).
- male: Schüler
- Studentin = female student at a university or similar higher-education institution.
- male: Student
So in der Grundschule (primary/elementary school), Schülerin is the correct word, not Studentin.
In standard German main clauses, the finite verb (here: ist) must go in second position (the “V2 rule”).
“Position” here means grammatical slot, not individual word count. A whole phrase counts as one “position”.
- Meine Tochter is one noun phrase → this is position 1.
- ist (the finite verb) must then be position 2.
- The rest follows after that: Schülerin in der Grundschule und lernt dort Lesen und Schreiben.
So the word order respects the standard V2 rule for German main clauses.
Meine Tochter is in the nominative case, because it is the subject of the sentence – the person who “is” something and who “learns” something.
- Meine Tochter (who?) → subject → nominative.
- The verb ist is a form of sein, which links the subject to a predicate noun (Schülerin). That predicate noun is also in the nominative.
So in:
- Meine Tochter ist Schülerin.
- Meine Tochter = nominative subject
- Schülerin = predicate nominative (same case as the subject)
The preposition in can take dative (location) or accusative (movement/direction):
- Wo? (Where? – static location) → dative
- Wohin? (Where to? – movement) → accusative
In this sentence, your daughter is at the primary school; there is no movement involved. So it answers Wo?:
- Sie ist in der Grundschule. (Where is she? In the primary school.) → dative
Forms:
- Feminine article:
- nominative: die Grundschule
- dative: der Grundschule
That’s why we say in der Grundschule here.
If there were motion, you’d use accusative:
- Sie geht in die Grundschule. – She goes to primary school.
In German, all nouns are capitalized, regardless of their position in the sentence.
- die Grundschule – the primary school
- die Tochter – the daughter
- das Lesen – the reading
So Grundschule is capitalized simply because it is a noun. The same rule applies to Tochter, Schülerin, Lesen, Schreiben, etc., in this sentence.
Normally, verbs are not capitalized:
- lesen – to read
- schreiben – to write
But in lernt dort Lesen und Schreiben, Lesen and Schreiben are not being used as verbs; they are used as nouns (“reading and writing” as activities or skills). This is called nominalization (turning a verb/adjective into a noun).
When a verb is nominalized, it is:
- capitalized
- treated as neuter in gender: das Lesen, das Schreiben
Examples:
- Das Lesen macht Spaß. – Reading is fun.
- Sie lernt Schreiben. – She is learning (the skill of) writing.
So they are capitalized because they function as nouns here, not as normal verbs.
Both structures are possible, but they have different flavors:
lernt dort Lesen und Schreiben
- Treats Lesen and Schreiben as skills/subjects.
- Feels very natural and idiomatic when talking about “learning reading and writing” at school.
lernt dort zu lesen und zu schreiben
- Keeps lesen and schreiben as infinitive verbs with zu.
- Also correct, but here it sounds a bit more like “is learning how to read and write” in a more verbal sense.
In the context of school subjects, Germans more often use the nominalized form without zu:
- Die Kinder lernen Lesen und Schreiben.
Both dort and da can mean “there”.
dort:
- A bit more specific and a little more formal.
- Refers to a place that is not here, often somewhat clearly defined.
da:
- Very common in spoken German.
- Often a bit more informal and flexible in meaning (“there / here / at that time / then” depending on context).
In … und lernt dort Lesen und Schreiben, dort refers back to in der Grundschule:
- dort = “there, at that place (in that school)”.
You could also hear:
- … und lernt da Lesen und Schreiben. which would sound more colloquial, especially in speech.
German uses commas:
- between independent main clauses,
- before many subordinate clauses,
- in certain long lists, etc.
Here, we have one subject (Meine Tochter) and then two verbs/actions in the same main clause:
- Meine Tochter ist Schülerin in der Grundschule
- (und) [Meine Tochter] lernt dort Lesen und Schreiben.
Because the subject is the same and und lernt … simply continues the same clause with another verb, no comma is needed.
If there were a full new clause with its own subject, then you might see a comma:
- Sie ist Schülerin in der Grundschule, und ihr Bruder geht in den Kindergarten.
German noun genders are partly logical, partly arbitrary, and mostly need to be memorized with the article:
- die Tochter – the daughter (feminine)
- der Sohn – the son (masculine)
- das Kind – the child (neuter)
For family members, the grammatical gender often matches the biological sex:
- Female persons: usually feminine (die Mutter, die Schwester, die Schülerin)
- Male persons: usually masculine (der Vater, der Bruder, der Schüler)
So Tochter is feminine, and you should learn it as die Tochter.
In standard German for primary/elementary school, the usual preposition is in:
- Sie ist in der Grundschule.
- Sie geht in die Grundschule.
auf der Grundschule is not standard for this meaning. However, with other types of schools (especially in colloquial/rural usage), you may hear:
- auf der Universität (alongside an der Universität)
- auf der Schule in some dialects/regions
For Grundschule, stick with in der Grundschule in standard German.
Yes. German allows relatively flexible word order as long as the verb is in second position in main clauses.
Your version:
- In der Grundschule = one prepositional phrase → counts as position 1
- ist = finite verb → position 2
- meine Tochter Schülerin und lernt dort Lesen und Schreiben = the rest
This sentence is grammatically correct and sounds natural. It slightly emphasizes the place (in primary school) by putting it first.
Both are fine:
- Meine Tochter ist Schülerin in der Grundschule und lernt dort Lesen und Schreiben.
- In der Grundschule ist meine Tochter Schülerin und lernt dort Lesen und Schreiben.