Breakdown of Die Wasserkiste im Flur ist schwer, deshalb tragen wir sie zu zweit.
Questions & Answers about Die Wasserkiste im Flur ist schwer, deshalb tragen wir sie zu zweit.
Wasserkiste is a compound noun: Wasser (water) + Kiste (crate/box).
In real usage, a Wasserkiste is:
- a crate full of bottles of water (usually glass or plastic bottles)
- the kind of crate you buy or return at a supermarket or drinks store
So it’s better translated as “crate of water bottles” or “water crate”, not literally “box of water”.
The gender of a German compound noun is determined by the last part of the compound.
- Kiste on its own is feminine: die Kiste
- Therefore, Wasserkiste is also feminine: die Wasserkiste
So you must say:
- die Wasserkiste (nominative singular)
- If you refer back to it with a pronoun, you also use the feminine pronoun sie (as in the sentence).
im is just a contraction of in dem:
- in
- dem → im
You use dem (dative) because:
- Flur is masculine: der Flur
- in takes the dative case when it expresses location (“where?”), not movement (“where to?”).
So:
- in dem Flur (in the hallway) → contracted to im Flur
Both im Flur and in dem Flur are grammatically correct, but in everyday speech and writing, im Flur is strongly preferred.
The sentence actually has two main clauses:
- Die Wasserkiste im Flur ist schwer
- deshalb tragen wir sie zu zweit
You separate two main clauses with a comma.
deshalb is a conjunctive adverb that connects the clauses (like “therefore / so” in English), but it does not change the fact that both parts are full main clauses, so a comma is required.
deshalb means “therefore / so / for that reason”. It introduces a result:
- X is the cause, therefore Y happens.
In the example:
- Cause: The crate is heavy.
- Result: We carry it as two people.
So: The crate is heavy, therefore we carry it with two people.
weil means “because” and introduces the reason directly:
- Y happens because X is the cause.
Compare:
Die Wasserkiste im Flur ist schwer, deshalb tragen wir sie zu zweit.
– The crate is heavy, therefore we carry it as two.Wir tragen die Wasserkiste im Flur zu zweit, weil sie schwer ist.
– We carry the crate as two because it is heavy.
You can’t just replace deshalb with weil in the original sentence without changing the structure and the meaning.
After deshalb, the finite verb must come immediately next.
- deshalb is a conjunctive adverb, and these trigger inversion in main clauses: the verb comes before the subject.
Pattern:
- Deshalb
- verb
- subject
- …
- subject
- verb
So:
- Deshalb tragen wir sie zu zweit. ✅
- Deshalb wir tragen sie zu zweit. ❌ (wrong word order)
Other similar words: dann, danach, trotzdem, daher, deswegen → all cause inversion.
sie refers back to die Wasserkiste, which is feminine.
In German, pronouns agree with the grammatical gender of the noun, not with its physical nature. A crate is inanimate, but if its noun is feminine, you must use sie.
- die Wasserkiste → feminine → sie (she/it)
- In the sentence, sie is the direct object (accusative) of tragen → still sie.
You could only use es if the antecedent were a neuter noun, for example:
- Das Paket ist schwer, deshalb tragen wir es zu zweit.
(The package is heavy, so we carry it as two.)
Here sie is in the accusative case, because it is the direct object of the verb tragen (“to carry”).
- Wer trägt? – wir (subject → nominative)
- Wen oder was tragen wir? – sie (direct object → accusative)
For the feminine pronoun sie (singular), nominative and accusative look the same: sie.
You know it’s accusative here from its function in the sentence, not from its form.
zu zweit literally means “as two / being two”, and idiomatically:
- “the two of us (together)”
- “with two people”
- “in a pair”
It describes how many people are doing something together.
You can form similar expressions:
- zu dritt – as three (three people together)
- zu viert – as four
- zu fünft – as five, etc.
Typical position: near the end of the clause and usually after the object:
- Wir tragen sie zu zweit.
- Wir fahren zu viert in den Urlaub.
zusammen and zu zweit overlap but are not identical:
zusammen = together (no number information)
- Wir tragen sie zusammen. – We carry it together. (Could be 2, 3, 4 people…)
zu zweit = as two / as a pair (specifically two people)
- Wir tragen sie zu zweit. – The two of us carry it.
So zu zweit is more precise about how many people are involved.
schwer is the standard adjective meaning “heavy”.
- Die Wasserkiste ist schwer. – The crate is heavy.
You could theoretically say hat viel Gewicht (“has a lot of weight”), but it sounds unnatural and overcomplicated in everyday German. Native speakers almost always use schwer for this meaning.
Note:
- schwer can also mean “difficult”, but in a physical context with objects, it normally means “heavy”.
Yes, you have some flexibility, as long as the verb stays in second position in a main clause. For example:
- Im Flur ist die Wasserkiste schwer, deshalb tragen wir sie zu zweit.
- Die Wasserkiste ist im Flur schwer, deshalb tragen wir sie zu zweit. (a bit unusual, sounds like it’s specifically heavy there)
The original word order,
- Die Wasserkiste im Flur ist schwer, …
sounds very natural: it specifies which crate (the one in the hallway).
German doesn’t have a separate progressive tense, and the present tense often covers several English uses:
- Present simple: “We carry it as two.”
- Present progressive: “We are carrying it as two.”
- Near future: “We’re going to carry it as two.”
tragen wir sie zu zweit can mean:
- something that is happening right now, or
- something that is a general habit in such situations, depending on context.
You could use the future (werden tragen) for emphasis on the future, but you don’t need to:
- Deshalb werden wir sie zu zweit tragen. – Therefore we will carry it as two.
The original sentence in the present is the most natural for a current, practical situation.