Breakdown of Mein T‑Shirt ist heute sauber.
sein
to be
heute
today
mein
my; (masculine or neuter, nominative)
sauber
clean
Questions & Answers about Mein T‑Shirt ist heute sauber.
Why is it Mein T‑Shirt and not Meine T‑Shirt?
Because T‑Shirt is grammatically neuter in German (das T‑Shirt).
In the nominative singular:
- masculine: mein Pullover (der Pullover)
- neuter: mein T‑Shirt (das T‑Shirt)
- feminine: meine Hose (die Hose)
So you use mein (not meine) with neuter and masculine nouns in the nominative singular.
How do I know that T‑Shirt is neuter (das T‑Shirt)?
With many loanwords like T‑Shirt, you usually just have to learn the gender. Dictionaries always list nouns with their article:
- das T‑Shirt – neuter
- der Pullover – masculine
- die Bluse – feminine
Over time you’ll get a feel for common patterns, but for specific items of clothing you generally memorize the article together with the noun: das T‑Shirt.
Why is T‑Shirt capitalized, but sauber and heute are not?
In German:
- All nouns are capitalized: T‑Shirt
- Adjectives are normally lower‑case: sauber
- Adverbs and other small words are also lower‑case: heute
So the capitalization here simply follows the general rule: nouns big, everything else small (with a few special exceptions you’ll see later).