Das Flugzeug landet heute später.

today

Breakdown of Das Flugzeug landet heute später.

• später: later
• das Flugzeug: the airplane
• landen: to end up

Questions & Answers about Das Flugzeug landet heute später.

Why is it das Flugzeug and not der or die Flugzeug?

In German every noun has a grammatical gender that you just have to learn with the noun.

• Flugzeug is neuter, so its definite article in the nominative singular is das.
• der would be for masculine nouns (e.g. der Tisch – the table).
• die would be for feminine nouns in the singular (e.g. die Tasche) and all nouns in the plural (e.g. die Flugzeuge – the airplanes).

A useful pattern: many neuter nouns ending in -zeug (tool/device) are neuter:

• das Flugzeug (airplane)
• das Feuerzeug (lighter)
• das Spielzeug (toy)

What grammatical role does das Flugzeug have here, and which case is it in?

Das Flugzeug is the subject of the sentence – it is the thing that is doing the action (landing).

Subjects in German take the nominative case, so das here is the nominative singular neuter article.

You can also see this from the verb:

• landen is intransitive here – it does not take a direct object, so there is no accusative noun.
• The only noun phrase is das Flugzeug, so it must be the subject → nominative.

What form of the verb is landet, and how is landen conjugated?