Learn Hardcore German: Wir hatten keine feste Verabredung, aber durch einen Zufall waren wir zur gleichen Zeit im gleichen Café. - We didn’t have a fixed date, but by chance we were in the same café at the same time.

In written German (and in somewhat more formal style), the Präteritum is preferred for common verbs like haben, sein, werden, können, etc. That’s why wir hatten is perfectly natural in a written example sentence.

Note: wir hatten gehabt would be Plusquamperfekt (past perfect: “we had had”) and would sound wrong in this sentence, because there is no need to place this action before another past event.

Why is it “keine feste Verabredung” and not “kein feste Verabredung” or “keine festen Verabredung”?

Break it down:

Verabredung = feminine noun (die Verabredung)
The object is in the accusative: keine feste Verabredung haben (to have no fixed appointment)
The negating “article” is keine (feminine accusative singular)
feste is an adjective before a feminine noun with something like a definite/indefinite article.

Pattern (feminine, singular, nominative/accusative):

eine feste Verabredung – a fixed appointment
keine feste Verabredung – no fixed appointment

So:

kein feste Verabredung → wrong (article form must be keine)
keine festen Verabredung → wrong (adjective ending should be -e, not -en, in this slot)

Correct is: keine feste Verabredung.

What’s the nuance of “feste Verabredung”? Could I just say “keine Verabredung”?

Verabredung = an appointment/arrangement/plan to meet someone.
feste Verabredung = a fixed, definite arrangement (clear time and place agreed beforehand).

So:

Wir hatten keine Verabredung.
→ We had no arrangement at all.
Wir hatten keine feste Verabredung.
→ We kind of had plans (maybe “we’ll see each other sometime”), but nothing clearly fixed (no agreed time/place).

You can drop feste if you only want to say “we had no appointment”. Keeping feste emphasizes the lack of a firm commitment.

What is the difference between “Verabredung”, “Treffen”, and “Termin”?

They all refer to “appointments/meetings” but with different flavors:

Verabredung
- Common in everyday speech.
- Often personal/social: meeting friends, a date, etc.
- Can be informal or semi-formal.
Treffen (das Treffen)
- Neutral “meeting/get-together”.
- Can be social or formal: ein Treffen mit Freunden or ein Treffen mit dem Chef.
Termin (der Termin)
- More official or professional: doctor’s appointment, business meeting, office visit.
- Also used for deadlines.

In this sentence, Verabredung fits well for a casual meet-up in a café.

Why do we say “durch einen Zufall” instead of just “zufällig”?

Both are possible, but they differ slightly:

durch einen Zufall
- Literally: “through a coincidence” / “because of a coincidence”.
- Uses the noun Zufall with the preposition durch.
- Sounds a bit more explicit or slightly more formal/literary.
zufällig
- Adverb: “by chance”, “coincidentally”.
- Very common in spoken language, a bit lighter and more compact.

You could also say:

… aber zufällig waren wir zur gleichen Zeit im gleichen Café.

Meaning is almost identical. durch einen Zufall can feel a bit more “storytelling” or emphatic, pointing to “this one particular coincidence”.

Why is it “durch einen Zufall” (accusative) and not “durch einem Zufall” (dative)?

The preposition durch always takes the accusative case.

Masculine noun: der Zufall
Accusative singular masculine: den Zufall
With ein:
- Nominative: ein Zufall
- Accusative: einen Zufall

So:

durch einen Zufall = by/through a coincidence
(preposition durch → accusative → einen)

durch einem Zufall is grammatically wrong.

Could you also say “durch Zufall” without “einen”? Is that different?

Yes, and “durch Zufall” is actually very common:

durch Zufall
- Sounds like “by chance”, “by coincidence” in general.
durch einen Zufall
- Slight emphasis on a particular coincidence, as if you were thinking of it as a concrete event.

In everyday speech, you will probably hear durch Zufall more often:

Wir hatten keine feste Verabredung, aber durch Zufall waren wir …

Why is the word order “aber durch einen Zufall waren wir …” and not “aber wir waren durch einen Zufall …”?

German main clauses follow the verb-second (V2) rule: the finite verb must be in second position (counting big chunks, not individual words).

In the second clause, the first “big chunk” is the prepositional phrase:

durch einen Zufall → first position
waren (finite verb) → second position
wir zur gleichen Zeit im gleichen Café → rest of the sentence

So we get:

… aber durch einen Zufall waren wir zur gleichen Zeit im gleichen Café.

You could also say:

… aber wir waren durch einen Zufall zur gleichen Zeit im gleichen Café.

That is also correct; it just puts the emphasis more on wir instead of durch einen Zufall. Fronting durch einen Zufall highlights the coincidence.

Why is there a comma before “aber”?

In German, aber is a coordinating conjunction (like “but” in English) that usually connects two main clauses.

Wir hatten keine feste Verabredung,
aber durch einen Zufall waren wir …

Each part has its own finite verb (hatten, waren), so both are full clauses. German spelling rules require a comma before coordinating conjunctions like aber, denn, sondern when they link clauses.

So the comma is mandatory here.

What exactly is “zur” in “zur gleichen Zeit”? Why not write “zu der gleichen Zeit”?

zur is a contraction:

zu der → zur

This is very common in German with certain prepositions + definite articles:

zu dem → zum
zu der → zur
in dem → im
an dem → am, etc.

So zur gleichen Zeit literally is zu der gleichen Zeit. Both are grammatically correct; the contracted form zur is more natural in everyday usage.

Why is it “zur gleichen Zeit” (dative) and not “zu die gleiche Zeit” (accusative)?

The preposition zu always takes the dative case.

Noun: die Zeit (feminine)
Dative singular feminine: der Zeit

With zu:

zu der Zeit → contracted to zur Zeit

With an adjective:

Dative feminine with definite article: der gleichen Zeit

So we get:

zu der gleichen Zeit → zur gleichen Zeit

Using zu die gleiche Zeit would be wrong, because zu requires dative, not accusative.

Why is the adjective ending “gleichen” in “zur gleichen Zeit”? Why not “gleiche Zeit”?

Pattern: adjective after a definite article (or something acting like one) in the dative singular feminine.

We have:

Preposition zu → dative
Feminine noun die Zeit
Dative feminine singular article: der
With adjective “gleich”: der gleichen Zeit

So:

zu der gleichen Zeit → zur gleichen Zeit

In dative singular (and most oblique cases) after a definite article, the adjective typically ends in -en:

mit der neuen Freundin
von der alten Schule
zu der gleichen Zeit

That’s why gleichen (not gleiche) is used here.

Why is it also “im gleichen Café” and not “im gleiche Café”?

Same logic, but with a neuter noun in dative:

Noun: das Café (neuter)
Location with in → dative (because we are in the café, not moving into it)
Dative singular neuter article: dem
With adjective “gleich”: dem gleichen Café
in dem gleichen Café → contracted: im gleichen Café

Dative with a definite article → adjective gets -en:

in dem kleinen Haus → im kleinen Haus
in dem gleichen Café → im gleichen Café

So im gleiche Café would be ungrammatical.

What is the nuance between “im gleichen Café” and “im selben Café”?

Both are often translated as “in the same café”, but:

im gleichen Café
- Literally “in an identical café” or “in the same kind of café”.
- In practice, people often use it simply as “in the same café”, but strictly speaking it can be a bit ambiguous (same type vs literally the same place).
im selben Café
- More precise: exactly the same café, the very same location.

In everyday speech, many native speakers don’t keep this distinction strictly and will say das gleiche when they mean dasselbe. But if you want to be precise:

das gleiche Café → another café of the same kind
dasselbe Café → literally the identical café, same place

In the context of this sentence (two people ending up in one café), im selben Café would be the more logically precise phrase, but im gleichen Café is widely used and understood as “the same café”.

Why is “Café” capitalized and why does it have an accent?

Capitalization: All nouns in German are capitalized.
Café is a noun → it must start with a capital letter.
Accent (é): Café is a loanword from French. In German, the accent is usually kept, although many people also write Cafe without it, especially informally. The spelling with é is considered more correct and standard.

So: im gleichen Café follows normal German rules: noun → capitalized; foreign loan → often keep original accent.

Could I also say “zur selben Zeit im selben Café” or “gleichzeitig im selben Café”? Are these correct?

Yes, both are correct and natural, with slight differences in nuance:

zur selben Zeit im selben Café
- Emphasizes “the very same time” and “the very same café”.
- Slightly more precise than gleichen.
gleichzeitig im selben Café
- Uses the adverb gleichzeitig = “at the same time”.
- A bit more compact:
  … aber durch einen Zufall waren wir gleichzeitig im selben Café.

All of these are grammatical and understandable. The original version is just one stylistic choice among several possible phrasings.