Learn Hardcore German: Heute kochen wir Suppe.

Heute kochen wir Suppe.

Today we are cooking soup.

Breakdown of Heute kochen wir Suppe.

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Questions & Answers about Heute kochen wir Suppe.

Why does the verb kochen come right after Heute instead of after wir?

In normal German main clauses, the conjugated verb must be in second position. This is called the V2 rule (Verb-second).

Heute is in the first position.
The conjugated verb kochen must therefore come next, in the second position.
The subject wir comes after that.

So:

Heute kochen wir Suppe. ✅ (adverb – verb – subject – object)
Heute wir kochen Suppe. ❌ (breaks the V2 rule)

If you start with the subject, the verb still stays second:

Wir kochen heute Suppe. ✅ (subject – verb – adverb – object)

Can I also say Wir kochen heute Suppe instead of Heute kochen wir Suppe? Does it change the meaning?

Both sentences are grammatically correct and can describe the same situation. The difference is emphasis and style, not basic meaning.

Wir kochen heute Suppe.
- Neutral, everyday word order.
- Slightly more common in spoken German.
- Focus is simply on what we are doing today.
Heute kochen wir Suppe.
- Puts extra emphasis on heute (“as for today…”).
- Often used to highlight today as a contrast to other days:
  - Gestern haben wir Pizza bestellt. Heute kochen wir Suppe.
    (“Yesterday we ordered pizza. Today we’re cooking soup.”)

Both are correct; choose based on what you want to emphasize.

In English we say “we are cooking” with “are”. Why is there no separate word like “are” in wir kochen?

German does not form the present tense with a separate “to be” + -ing structure. Instead:

The single conjugated verb covers both:
- wir kochen = we cook or we are cooking.

So:

Heute kochen wir Suppe.
→ can mean “Today we cook soup” or “Today we are cooking soup.”

If you want to stress the “right now / in progress” feeling, you can add gerade:

Heute kochen wir gerade Suppe.
= “Today we are (right now) cooking soup.”

Why is Suppe capitalized?

In German, all nouns are capitalized, no matter where they appear in the sentence.

Suppe is a noun, so it is written with a capital S.
Heute is normally written with a lowercase h (heute), but it’s at the beginning of the sentence, so it is capitalized there.

Examples:

Wir essen Suppe.
Heute essen wir Suppe.
Morgen gibt es Suppe.

In all of them, Suppe is capitalized because it is a noun.

Why is there no article before Suppe? Why not eine Suppe or die Suppe?

German often leaves out the article with uncountable or “mass” nouns when you mean an indefinite amount, similar to English “some” or just the bare noun.

Wir kochen Suppe.
≈ “We are cooking (some) soup.” (general, indefinite amount)

You use an article when you want to be more specific:

eine Suppe – “a soup”, “one soup” (a whole pot/bowl etc.)
- Wir kochen eine Suppe.
  = “We are cooking a soup.” (one soup, maybe a new soup we planned)
die Suppe – “the soup” (a particular soup you both know about)
- Wir kochen die Suppe.
  = “We are cooking the soup.” (the specific soup we talked about)

So:

Heute kochen wir Suppe.
→ general idea: we’re cooking soup (not specifying which one).
Heute kochen wir die Suppe.
→ refers to a soup already known from context (for example, the soup we bought yesterday).

What grammatical case is Suppe here?

In Heute kochen wir Suppe, Suppe is the direct object of the verb kochen (“to cook”).

The direct object in German is in the accusative case.

Subject (nominative): wir
Verb: kochen
Direct object (accusative): Suppe

Suppe is a feminine noun (die Suppe). For feminine nouns, the nominative and accusative forms are the same when there is no article, so Suppe looks the same in both cases.

If you add an article, you can see the accusative more clearly:

Nominative: die Suppe (as subject)
- Die Suppe kocht. – “The soup is boiling.”
Accusative: die Suppe (as object – same form for feminine)
- Wir kochen die Suppe. – “We are cooking the soup.”

What is the gender of Suppe, and how do I know?

Suppe is feminine in German:

die Suppe – the soup
eine Suppe – a soup

How to know:

You normally have to learn the gender with the noun. Dictionaries show it as:
- die Suppe or Suppe, f.
There is a tendency (not a perfect rule) for many nouns ending in -e to be feminine:
die Suppe, die Lampe, die Straße, die Blume, etc.

So when you learn a new noun, it’s best to memorize it with its article:
die Suppe, not just Suppe.

Could I say Heute wir kochen Suppe?

No, Heute wir kochen Suppe is incorrect word order in German.

Because of the V2 rule, the conjugated verb must be the second element in a main clause:

Heute kochen wir Suppe. ✅
(1st: Heute, 2nd: kochen, 3rd: wir, 4th: Suppe)

Putting wir before kochen makes the verb third, which is not allowed in a normal main clause:

Heute wir kochen Suppe. ❌ (verb in 3rd position)

So the correct options are, for example:

Heute kochen wir Suppe.
Wir kochen heute Suppe.

Can I put heute somewhere else in the sentence? For example: Wir kochen Suppe heute?

Yes, heute is flexible, but some positions are more natural than others.

Most common:

Wir kochen heute Suppe. ✅
(very natural; neutral word order)
Heute kochen wir Suppe. ✅
(emphasis on today)

Less common / marked:

Wir kochen Suppe heute.
- Grammatically possible, but sounds a bit unusual or emphatic.
- Can be used to stress heute at the end:
  Wir kochen Suppe – aber nicht morgen, *heute!*

So:

Preferred: Wir kochen heute Suppe. or Heute kochen wir Suppe.
Understandable but marked: Wir kochen Suppe heute.

How would I turn this into a yes/no question: “Are we cooking soup today?”

For a yes/no question, German puts the conjugated verb first.

From the statement:

Heute kochen wir Suppe.
→ Kochen wir heute Suppe?

Both are correct and common:

Kochen wir heute Suppe?
Kochen wir Suppe heute? (a bit more emphatic on heute)

They both mean: “Are we cooking soup today?”

How would I say “Today we cooked soup” (past tense) in German?

The most common way in spoken and informal written German is the Perfekt (haben/sein + past participle):

Heute haben wir Suppe gekocht.
= “Today we cooked soup” / “Today we have cooked soup.”

Breakdown:

haben – auxiliary verb, conjugated for wir
gekocht – past participle of kochen

Word order:

Time adverb: Heute
Auxiliary (2nd position): haben
Subject: wir
Object: Suppe
Past participle (normally at the end): gekocht

You could also use the simple past:

Heute kochten wir Suppe.

This is grammatically correct but sounds more written/literary or “story-like” in modern German, especially in many regions. In everyday speech, Heute haben wir Suppe gekocht is much more common.

How do I say “Today we are not cooking soup”?

You need to negate the noun phrase “Suppe” with kein (not nicht), because there is no article in the positive sentence.

Positive:

Heute kochen wir Suppe.
= “Today we are cooking soup.”

Negative:

Heute kochen wir keine Suppe.
= “Today we are not cooking any soup.” / “Today we are not cooking soup.”

Why keine, not nicht?

kein(e) is used to negate indefinite nouns (nouns without an article, or with ein-).
Suppe here is indefinite (no article), so: keine Suppe.

If you had die Suppe, you would use nicht:

Heute kochen wir die Suppe nicht.
= “Today we are not cooking the soup.”

How do you pronounce kochen and Suppe?

kochen

ko-: like “ko” in “coffee” (British “cot” vowel), [kɔ] in IPA.
-ch- after o: a back “ch” sound, like the ch in Scottish “Loch” or German “Bach”.
-en: in many accents like a reduced “uhn” [ən].

Approximate: [ˈkɔxən] → KOH-khən (with that rough “kh” sound).

Suppe

Su-: like “zoo” but shorter; [zʊ].
-pp-: just a normal [p] sound (double consonant only shortens the preceding vowel).
-e at the end: a schwa [ə], like the “a” in “sofa”.

Approximate: [ˈzʊpə] → ZUP-uh (with voiced z at the start, not an English “s” sound).

Does Heute kochen wir Suppe talk about now, a plan for later today, or a general habit?

German Präsens (present tense) is flexible and can express all three, depending on context:

Right now / currently
- Was macht ihr? – Heute kochen wir Suppe.
  “What are you doing?” – “Today we’re cooking soup.”
Plan for later today
- Was gibt es heute zum Essen? – Heute kochen wir Suppe.
  “What are we having today?” – “Today we’re (going to) cook soup.”
Regular habit (less likely without context)
- Montags essen wir Pasta. Dienstags essen wir Salat. Heute kochen wir Suppe.
  Here it could be part of a schedule, but you’d usually add more context.

If you really want to highlight the planned future, you can use the future tense, though it’s not usually necessary:

Heute werden wir Suppe kochen.
= “Today we will cook soup.” (emphasis on future/planned)

Is there a more “progressive” way to say “We are in the middle of cooking soup right now”?

Yes, while German usually just uses the simple present, you can make the “in progress” meaning clearer with gerade or with a construction with am:

Using gerade (very common and natural):
- Wir kochen gerade Suppe.
  = “We are cooking soup right now.”
“am-Progressiv” (regional / colloquial, especially in western Germany):
- Wir sind gerade Suppe am Kochen.
  = literally “We are at cooking soup.”
  This is understood, but it’s more informal/regional and not needed in standard language.

For standard German, Wir kochen gerade Suppe is the best choice.