Das Gemeinsame in unserer Gruppe macht mir Spaß.

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Breakdown of Das Gemeinsame in unserer Gruppe macht mir Spaß.

• machen: to make
• der Spaß: the fun
• mir: me

Questions & Answers about Das Gemeinsame in unserer Gruppe macht mir Spaß.

What is das Gemeinsame grammatically, and why is Gemeinsame capitalized?

Das Gemeinsame is an adjective (gemeinsam) that has been turned into a noun. This is called a nominalized adjective (in German: substantiviertes Adjektiv).

• Base adjective: gemeinsam = “shared, common, mutual”
• Nominalized: das Gemeinsame = “that which is shared / the things we have in common”

In German, whenever an adjective is used as a noun, it is:

• Capitalized: das Gemeinsame
• Given an article: das, ein, dieses, etc.
• Given an adjective ending: here, -e in Gemeinsame

So we’re literally saying “The shared [thing(s)] in our group is fun for me,” i.e., “What we have in common in our group is fun for me.”

Why is it das Gemeinsame and not die or der Gemeinsame?