Breakdown of Ich trinke zwischendurch Wasser.
Questions & Answers about Ich trinke zwischendurch Wasser.
In German, you normally leave out the article with uncountable / mass nouns when you mean them in a general, non‑specific way.
- Ich trinke Wasser.
= I drink water (in general, as a type of drink).
If you add an article, the meaning changes:
Ich trinke das Wasser.
= I am drinking the water (a specific water that we both know about: the water in this glass, the water from the tap here, etc.).Ich trinke ein Wasser.
= I’m drinking a water (usually understood as one glass/bottle of water, e.g. in a restaurant).
So in Ich trinke zwischendurch Wasser, you’re talking about water in general, not any particular glass of water, so there is no article.
Zwischendurch literally combines zwischen (between) + durch (through), and it means roughly:
- in between (other things)
- in the meantime
- now and then / from time to time while doing other things
It often implies you do something between main activities, e.g. between meals, between tasks, during breaks.
Examples:
- Ich esse zwischendurch ein paar Nüsse.
I eat a few nuts in between (meals / tasks). - Ich lese zwischendurch ein bisschen.
I read a bit in between (other things).
So zwischendurch is not just “sometimes” in a neutral way. It carries the idea “in the gaps / in between other things”.
Yes. Zwischendurch is an adverb, and German adverbs are quite flexible in word order. All of these are grammatically correct:
- Ich trinke zwischendurch Wasser.
- Ich trinke Wasser zwischendurch.
- Zwischendurch trinke ich Wasser.
Differences:
Ich trinke zwischendurch Wasser.
Neutral, very common. Focus is slightly on what you drink (Wasser).Ich trinke Wasser zwischendurch.
Similar meaning, but the adverb at the end often feels a bit more like an “afterthought”: “I drink water, by the way, in between.”Zwischendurch trinke ich Wasser.
Starts with the time frame “in between”; it emphasizes when you drink water. Very natural if you’re contrasting it with something else:
Zwischendurch trinke ich Wasser, aber meistens trinke ich Tee.
All three variants are fine; word order mainly affects emphasis, not grammaticality.
In this meaning, it is always one word: zwischendurch.
- ✅ Ich trinke zwischendurch Wasser.
- ❌ Ich trinke zwischen durch Wasser. (wrong)
Zwischendurch is a fixed adverb, like English “nowadays” or “sometimes”. You don’t split it.
If you want to use zwischen separately, you usually follow it with a noun (often in the dative):
- Ich trinke Wasser zwischen den Mahlzeiten.
I drink water between meals.
All three can sometimes be translated as “sometimes / now and then”, but they’re not identical.
manchmal = sometimes, on some occasions.
Neutral frequency word, no idea of “between” anything.- Ich trinke manchmal Wasser. – Sometimes I drink water.
ab und zu = every now and then, once in a while.
Very similar to manchmal, maybe a bit more casual and slightly less frequent.- Ich trinke ab und zu Wasser.
zwischendurch = in between other things; in the gaps.
Focus on the timing relative to other activities, not just frequency.- Ich trinke zwischendurch Wasser.
→ I drink water in between other things (e.g. between meals, while working, between coffees).
- Ich trinke zwischendurch Wasser.
You can often swap manchmal and ab und zu.
Zwischendurch is best when you want the idea of “between meals / between tasks / during breaks.”
Trinken is a regular (weak) verb in the present tense. Here is the full conjugation:
- ich trinke – I drink
- du trinkst – you drink (informal singular)
- er / sie / es trinkt – he / she / it drinks
- wir trinken – we drink
- ihr trinkt – you drink (informal plural, “you all”)
- sie trinken – they drink
- Sie trinken – you drink (formal singular & plural)
In Ich trinke zwischendurch Wasser, trinke is the 1st person singular form that agrees with ich.
German does not have a separate continuous form like English “I am drinking”. The simple present can express:
a general habit:
Ich trinke zwischendurch Wasser.
→ I (usually) drink water in between (other things).or something that is happening now (in the right context).
But because of zwischendurch, this sentence is naturally read as a habitual statement, not as “right now”.
For “I’m drinking water right now”, Germans would usually say something like:
- Ich trinke gerade Wasser.
(gerade = right now)
In German, all nouns are capitalized, regardless of whether they’re proper names or common nouns, countable or uncountable.
- Wasser = water → always capitalized
- das Wasser, viel Wasser, kein Wasser, Wasser trinken – in all of these, Wasser is a noun, so it must be written with a capital W.
So Ich trinke zwischendurch Wasser follows the general rule: every noun starts with a capital letter.
Yes, in conversation you can use zwischendurch alone as a kind of short adverbial answer, similar to “sometimes / once in a while”.
Example:
- Trinkst du auch Wasser? – Do you drink water too?
- Zwischendurch. – From time to time / Now and then.
It’s slightly informal and feels like an elliptical answer (short for “Ich trinke zwischendurch Wasser”), but it’s natural.
The sentence is neutral.
German formality mainly shows up in the pronoun for “you” (du vs Sie), and in verb endings that go with those pronouns. Here, the subject is ich (I), so there’s no formality issue at all.
You can use Ich trinke zwischendurch Wasser in any context: with friends, in an interview, in a presentation, etc. It’s perfectly standard German.