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Diese Stadt wirkt heute ruhig.

Diese Stadt wirkt heute ruhig.
This city seems calm today.
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Questions & Answers about Diese Stadt wirkt heute ruhig.

What exactly does wirkt mean in this sentence?

Here wirkt means seems / appears / comes across as.

So:

  • Diese Stadt wirkt heute ruhig.
    ≈ This city seems calm today.

It does not mean “works” or “has an effect” here (which are other meanings of wirken in different contexts). In this sentence, wirken expresses a subjective impression: how the city feels to the speaker.

Why do we use wirkt instead of ist?

Both are possible, but the nuance changes:

  • Diese Stadt ist heute ruhig.
    → This city is calm today. (stating a fact)

  • Diese Stadt wirkt heute ruhig.
    → This city seems/appears calm today. (speaker’s impression)

ist = objective description.
wirkt = how something comes across to you; it leaves that impression, but you’re not necessarily claiming it as an objective fact.

Why is it wirkt and not wirken?

Because the subject diese Stadt is 3rd person singular (she/it).

Conjugation of wirken (to seem / to have an effect) in the present tense:

  • ich wirke
  • du wirkst
  • er/sie/es wirkt
  • wir wirken
  • ihr wirkt
  • sie/Sie wirken

Diese Stadt → like sie (she/it) → sie wirkt.
Therefore: Diese Stadt wirkt heute ruhig.

Why is it diese Stadt and not dieser Stadt or dieses Stadt?

Because:

  1. Stadt is grammatically feminine in German: die Stadt.
  2. It is the subject of the sentence, so it’s in nominative case.
  3. The feminine nominative form of dies- is diese.

Declension in nominative:

  • masculine: dieser Mann
  • feminine: diese Frau / diese Stadt
  • neuter: dieses Kind
  • plural: diese Leute

So with Stadt (feminine, nominative, singular) you must use diese.

What case is diese Stadt in?

diese Stadt is in the nominative case.

Reasons:

  • It is the subject (the thing that “seems”).
  • There is no preposition demanding another case.
  • With the verb wirken in this meaning, the thing that “seems” is in nominative.

So:

  • Wer oder was wirkt? (Who or what seems?)
    → diese Stadt → nominative.
Can I move heute to another position? For example: Heute wirkt diese Stadt ruhig.

Yes. That is perfectly correct and actually very natural:

  • Diese Stadt wirkt heute ruhig.
    (Neutral; slight focus on the city.)

  • Heute wirkt diese Stadt ruhig.
    (Focus on “today” — maybe compared to other days.)

German main clauses follow the V2 (verb-second) rule:

  1. One element in the first position (subject, time, place, etc.).
  2. The conjugated verb in the second position.

So both are fine:

  • Diese Stadt (position 1) – wirkt (position 2) – heute ruhig …
  • Heute (position 1) – wirkt (position 2) – diese Stadt ruhig …
Is ruhig here an adjective or an adverb?

Formally it’s an adjective, but in this sentence it functions predicatively, similar to an English adjective after to be / to seem:

  • Die Stadt ist ruhig. – The city is calm.
  • Die Stadt wirkt ruhig. – The city seems calm.

German doesn’t have a separate adverb form like English calm → calmly; usually the bare adjective ruhig can also do the job of an adverb, depending on context:

  • Er spricht ruhig. – He speaks calmly. (adverbial use)
  • Er ist ruhig. – He is calm. (adjectival use)
What’s the difference between ruhig, still, and leise?

All have to do with quietness, but with different nuances:

  • ruhig

    • calm, peaceful, quiet (general atmosphere, also about people being calm)
    • Die Stadt ist ruhig. – The city is calm/quiet.

  • still

    • very quiet, silent, no movement or noise
    • Es ist still im Haus. – It is silent in the house.

  • leise

    • quiet / soft (mainly about volume of a sound)
    • Sprich leiser. – Speak more quietly/softer.

In Diese Stadt wirkt heute ruhig, ruhig is best because it describes the overall atmosphere as calm and peaceful.

Could I also say Diese Stadt scheint heute ruhig? What’s the difference between wirkt and scheint?

You can say:

  • Diese Stadt scheint heute ruhig zu sein. (more complete)
  • More colloquial: Diese Stadt scheint heute ruhig. (often used in speech)

Nuance:

  • wirkt
    = how something comes across, the effect or impression it has on you.
    Slightly more about appearance/impact.

  • scheint
    = seems / appears (to be), often implying you are inferring this from some evidence.

In everyday speech they overlap a lot, but:

  • wirkt ruhig → the atmosphere gives you that impression.
  • scheint ruhig zu sein → you conclude that it is calm based on what you see/hear.
Why is the verb in the present tense (wirkt) if we say “today”?

German uses the present tense much like English:

  • Heute wirkt die Stadt ruhig.
    → Today the city seems calm.

You are talking about the current situation today, so present tense is normal.
If you wanted to refer to an earlier point in time (earlier today), you would use the past:

  • Heute Morgen wirkte die Stadt ruhig.
    → This morning the city seemed calm.
Is there any difference between Diese Stadt and Die Stadt at the beginning?

Yes, a subtle one:

  • Die Stadt wirkt heute ruhig.
    → Neutral: The city seems calm today.

  • Diese Stadt wirkt heute ruhig.
    → This city (as opposed to another city, or as a specific one in focus) seems calm today.

diese adds a sense of pointing or contrast: this particular city that we’re talking about (maybe compared with others, or with how it usually is).