Word
Der Laute nervt den Stillen im Wohnzimmer.
Meaning
The loud one annoys the quiet one in the living room.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Lesson
Breakdown of Der Laute nervt den Stillen im Wohnzimmer.
das Wohnzimmer
the living room
im
in the; (masculine or neuter, dative)
nerven
to annoy
der Stille
the quiet person
Questions & Answers about Der Laute nervt den Stillen im Wohnzimmer.
Why are Laute and Stillen written with capital letters? Aren’t they just adjectives?
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.
How do I know who is annoying whom in this sentence?
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.