Breakdown of Mein neues Zelt ist leicht, aber groß genug für zwei Personen.
Questions & Answers about Mein neues Zelt ist leicht, aber groß genug für zwei Personen.
There are three things going on here:
Gender of the noun
- Zelt is neuter: das Zelt.
- So the possessive has to match a neuter noun.
The form of the possessive
- Possessive determiners (mein, dein, sein, ihr, unser, euer, ihr, Ihr) behave like ein in terms of endings.
- For a neuter nominative singular noun (the subject), the correct form is mein (no extra ending).
Adjective ending after a possessive determiner
- After mein in neuter nominative singular, the adjective takes -es.
- Pattern (nominative singular):
- masculine: mein neuer Wagen
- neuter: mein neues Zelt
- feminine: meine neue Jacke
So:
- mein neues Zelt ✅
- mein neue Zelt ❌ (wrong adjective ending for neuter)
- meine neues Zelt ❌ (wrong possessive ending for neuter)
In this case, you mostly have to learn the gender with the noun:
- The correct form is das Zelt (neuter).
- There is no reliable ending like -ung or -heit here that always tells you the gender.
- Many short, concrete nouns in German can be any gender, so you learn article + noun together:
- der Tisch
- die Lampe
- das Zelt
Best practice:
- When you learn a word, learn it as das Zelt, not just Zelt.
- Over time you get a feeling for common patterns, but for words like Zelt it’s mostly memorization.
Because of case, gender, and the type of word before the adjective:
Case & function
- Mein neues Zelt is the subject of the sentence → nominative.
Gender & number
- Zelt is neuter singular: das Zelt.
What stands before the adjective?
- Before neues you have mein, a possessive determiner (same pattern as ein).
- After ein/mein/dein/... in neuter nominative singular, the adjective ending is -es.
So the rule for neuter nominative singular after ein-words (ein, kein, mein, dein, sein, ihr, unser, euer, Ihr) is:
- ein neues Zelt
- kein neues Zelt
- mein neues Zelt
That’s why you get neues.
Because here leicht and groß genug are predicative adjectives, not adjectives directly in front of a noun.
Compare:
attributive adjective (before a noun, gets endings):
- ein leichtes Zelt
- ein großes Zelt
predicative adjective (after verbs like sein, werden, bleiben, no endings):
- Mein Zelt ist leicht.
- Mein Zelt ist groß.
In your sentence:
- Mein neues Zelt → attributive, so neues takes an ending.
- ist leicht, aber groß genug → predicative adjectives after ist, so leicht and groß stay in the basic form (no endings).
In German, leicht can mean both:
Light (not heavy)
- Mein neues Zelt ist leicht. → It doesn’t weigh much.
- Diese Tasche ist sehr leicht.
Easy
- Die Übung ist leicht. → The exercise is easy.
In your sentence, because the subject is Zelt (tent), the natural and most common meaning is lightweight, not heavy.
If you wanted to say something is easy to do, you’d usually describe an activity:
- Das Zelt aufzubauen ist leicht. → Setting up the tent is easy.
With adjectives, the usual position of genug (enough) is after the adjective:
- groß genug → big enough
- alt genug → old enough
- schnell genug → fast enough
So:
- Mein neues Zelt ist groß genug. ✅
- Mein neues Zelt ist genug groß. ❌ (sounds wrong/very unusual in standard German)
Genug can go before other types of words (especially nouns):
- genug Zeit → enough time
- genug Geld → enough money
But after adjectives, the normal order is: adjective + genug.
Für is a preposition that always takes the accusative case.
- für wen? → for whom? (accusative)
- für was? → for what? (accusative)
In für zwei Personen:
- Personen is the accusative plural of Person.
- The accusative plural of Person and the nominative plural look the same: zwei Personen.
So grammatically:
- Preposition: für → requires accusative
- Object of für: zwei Personen in the accusative plural
Meaning-wise, für zwei Personen expresses capacity: the tent is suitable for / can hold two people.
They are related but not fully interchangeable:
Person / Personen
- More formal and neutral.
- Used in official or technical contexts, and for capacities:
- Das Zimmer ist für zwei Personen.
- Maximal vier Personen.
Leute
- Means people, informal, only plural.
- You can use it with numbers, but Personen is more standard for capacities:
- Da waren drei Leute. (everyday speech)
- On a sign, you will almost always see: Maximal 3 Personen, not 3 Leute.
In your sentence, für zwei Personen is exactly what you’d normally say about a tent’s capacity. Für zwei Leute is understandable and casual, but für zwei Personen is the more typical and neutral phrasing.
The verb agrees with the subject, not with the phrase inside für.
- Subject: Mein neues Zelt → singular.
- Verb: ist (3rd person singular of sein).
Für zwei Personen is just a prepositional phrase describing suitability/capacity. It does not control verb agreement.
So:
- Mein neues Zelt ist leicht.
- Mein neues Zelt ist groß genug für zwei Personen.
Even though zwei Personen is plural, the verb stays singular because Zelt is singular.
In this sentence, yes, the comma is correct and standard.
- Aber is a coordinating conjunction (like und, oder, denn).
- Here it links two parts of the predicate:
- ist leicht
- (ist) groß genug für zwei Personen
Strictly, you could expand it to:
- Mein neues Zelt ist leicht, aber (es ist) groß genug für zwei Personen.
In modern German punctuation, a comma before aber is required when it connects two main clauses and is also normal when connecting two clearly separate parts like this. In your example, the comma is definitely the preferred and most natural choice.
Yes, that’s perfectly correct too:
- Mein neues Zelt ist leicht, aber es ist groß genug für zwei Personen.
Meaning:
- The meaning is the same: it’s lightweight but still big enough for two people.
Difference:
- The original version is a bit more compact and natural in everyday speech, because German often omits the repeated ist and es when it’s clear from context:
- … ist leicht, aber groß genug …
Your expanded version is grammatically fine and fully understandable; it just sounds slightly more formal or explicit.