Breakdown of Die Großen spielen mit den Kleinen im Garten.
Questions & Answers about Die Großen spielen mit den Kleinen im Garten.
In German, adjectives can be turned into nouns when the actual noun is omitted but clearly understood from context. This is called substantivierte Adjektive (nominalized adjectives).
- die Großen literally: “the big ones” / “the older ones / adults / bigger children”
- die Kleinen literally: “the small ones” / “the little ones / younger children”
Because they are functioning as nouns here (standing in for people), they must be capitalized, just like any other noun in German.
If they were just normal adjectives before nouns, they would be lowercase, e.g.:
- die großen Kinder – the big children
- die kleinen Kinder – the small children
On their own, die Großen and die Kleinen are a bit vague and rely on context.
Common interpretations:
die Großen
- adults vs. children
- older children vs. younger children
- bigger people vs. smaller people
die Kleinen
- children (seen from an adult’s perspective)
- younger kids in contrast to older kids
- smaller people in contrast to taller/bigger ones
In everyday speech, in a family or school context, die Großen often means the older kids and die Kleinen the younger kids / the little ones.
The -en endings come from adjective endings with a definite article in the plural.
Here:
- die Großen – nominative plural (subject)
- den Kleinen – dative plural (after mit)
When an adjective is used as a noun and comes after a definite article in the plural, it behaves like a normal adjective:
- die großen Kinder → die Großen
- mit den kleinen Kindern → mit den Kleinen
In both cases, the correct adjective ending in the plural (with a definite article) is -en, so we get Großen and Kleinen.
This is a question of case:
- die Großen is the subject of the sentence → nominative plural
- mit den Kleinen is the object of the preposition mit → dative plural
Forms of the definite article in the plural:
- Nominative plural: die (e.g. die Großen – the big ones)
- Dative plural: den (e.g. mit den Kleinen – with the little ones)
So we have:
- Die Großen (who is doing the action? → nominative)
- spielen mit den Kleinen (with whom? → dative after mit)
The preposition mit in German always takes the dative case.
That means:
- singular:
- mit dem Mann
- mit der Frau
- mit dem Kind
- plural:
- mit den Kindern
- mit den Kleinen
So mit die Kleinen is grammatically wrong because die is nominative/accusative plural, not dative.
The correct dative plural form is den Kleinen.
This is simply how German is structured: certain prepositions are fixed with particular cases. You have to learn them as a package:
- Always dative:
mit, bei, nach, von, zu, aus, seit (often remembered as “aus, bei, mit, nach, seit, von, zu”)
Since mit is one of these, the noun or pronoun after it must be in the dative.
That is why we say mit den Kleinen (dative plural), not mit die Kleinen.
im is a contraction of in dem:
- in + dem Garten → im Garten
German very often contracts a preposition plus a definite article:
- in dem → im
- an dem → am
- zu dem → zum
- zu der → zur
So im Garten literally means “in the garden”.
You could technically also say in dem Garten, but in everyday speech im Garten is much more common and sounds more natural.
Garten is dative singular, masculine.
- The full, uncontracted form is in dem Garten.
- in can take either accusative or dative, depending on whether you mean movement into (accusative) or location in (dative).
Here we talk about location (playing in the garden), so we use dative:
- Wo? (Where?) → im Garten → dative
- Wohin? (Where to?) → in den Garten → accusative
Thus Garten is masculine dative singular: in dem Garten → im Garten.
Yes. That word order is perfectly correct and very natural.
German main clauses follow the verb-second (V2) rule:
- Die Großen spielen mit den Kleinen im Garten.
- Subject first, verb second.
- Im Garten spielen die Großen mit den Kleinen.
- The place expression im Garten is moved to the front. The verb (spielen) must still come second, so the subject (die Großen) moves after the verb.
Both sentences mean the same thing. The version starting with Im Garten slightly emphasizes where the action is happening.
You would use the singular forms:
- Der Große spielt mit dem Kleinen im Garten.
→ one male “big one” and one male “little one” (or grammatically masculine persons/things)
If you clearly mean females:
- Die Große spielt mit der Kleinen im Garten.
→ one female “big one” and one female “little one”
The pattern is:
- Masculine:
- nominative: der Große
- dative: dem Kleinen
- Feminine:
- nominative: die Große
- dative: der Kleinen
- Plural:
- nominative: die Großen
- dative: den Kleinen
die großen Kinder
- Adjective (großen) + noun (Kinder)
- Means specifically “the big/tall/older children”
- großen is lowercase because it’s just an adjective.
die Großen
- Adjective used as a noun (no following noun)
- Means “the big ones / the older ones / the adults / the older kids”, depending on context
- Großen is capitalized because it functions as a noun.
If you write die großen (lowercase) without a noun, it looks incomplete or wrong in standard German. If there’s no noun, the adjective must be capitalized and treated as a noun: die Großen.
Yes, they are flexible and context-dependent:
- Size:
- Big vs small objects or animals, if that’s clear from context.
- Age:
- Very common: die Großen = older kids or adults, die Kleinen = younger children.
- Height:
- Can also mean tall vs short, especially when talking about people.
In a typical family/school context, most native speakers will automatically understand die Großen as older kids/adults and die Kleinen as younger kids/the little ones.