Breakdown of Meine Chefin erklärt mir den Arbeitsvertrag.
mein
my; (masculine or neuter, nominative)
mir
me
erklären
to explain
den
the; (masculine, accusative)
Questions & Answers about Meine Chefin erklärt mir den Arbeitsvertrag.
What does the -in ending in Chefin mean, and why is it used here?
The ending -in makes a noun grammatically feminine and usually refers to a female person in that role.
- Chef = (male) boss
- Chefin = (female) boss
Because we are talking about a female boss, the sentence uses Chefin. If the boss were male, it would be:
- Mein Chef erklärt mir den Arbeitsvertrag.
Why is it Meine Chefin and not Mein Chefin?
The possessive determiner (mein, dein, sein, etc.) changes its ending to agree with the gender, number, and case of the noun it belongs to.
- Chefin is feminine.
- In this sentence, Chefin is the subject, so it is in the nominative case, singular, feminine.
For feminine nominative singular, mein takes the ending -e:
- meine Chefin (feminine nominative)
- mein Chef (masculine nominative)
So we say Meine Chefin erklärt ….
Why is it mir and not mich?