Mein Kommilitone hilft mir bei der Hausarbeit.

my; (masculine or neuter, nominative)

Breakdown of Mein Kommilitone hilft mir bei der Hausarbeit.

• mir: me
• bei: with
• helfen: to help

Questions & Answers about Mein Kommilitone hilft mir bei der Hausarbeit.

What exactly does Kommilitone mean, and how is it different from Kollege or Freund?

Kommilitone means fellow student at a university – someone who studies at the same university, often in the same program or course.

• Kommilitone: specifically a (usually male) fellow university student
• Kommilitonin: female form
• Kollege: colleague at work, or sometimes a fellow professional (e.g. another teacher, doctor, etc.), not automatically someone who studies with you
• Freund: friend (can be a close friend, or in some contexts boyfriend)

So mein Kommilitone = my fellow student / my classmate at university, not my colleague in the work sense and not necessarily my friend (though he could be a friend too).

Why is it Mein Kommilitone and not Meine Kommilitone?

The possessive mein- must agree with the gender, number, and case of the noun it describes.

• Kommilitone is masculine singular.
• In this sentence, Mein Kommilitone is the subject, so it’s in the nominative case.

Nominative singular possessives:

• Masculine: mein Kommilitone
• Feminine: meine Freundin
• Neuter: mein Buch
• Plural: meine Freunde

So for a masculine subject in the nominative, you use mein, not meine.

Why does the noun end in -e (Kommilitone) and not just Kommiliton?