Breakdown of Der Laute nervt den Stillen im Wohnzimmer.
Questions & Answers about Der Laute nervt den Stillen im Wohnzimmer.
In this sentence, laut and still are adjectives used as nouns (in German: substantivierte Adjektive).
- Der Laute = the loud (one) / the loud person
- den Stillen = the quiet (one) / the quiet person
Whenever an adjective is used as a noun like this, German writes it with a capital letter, just like any other noun. That’s why you see Laute and Stillen, not laute and stillen.
German shows who does what mainly with cases, not word order.
- Der Laute → der = nominative masculine singular → subject
- den Stillen → den = accusative masculine singular → direct object
So:
- Der Laute (subject) nervt (verb) den Stillen (object).
Even if you changed the word order to:
- Den Stillen nervt der Laute im Wohnzimmer.
it would still mean: The loud one annoys the quiet one in the living room, because der (nominative) marks the subject and den (accusative) marks the object.