Der Hund wartet vor dem Haus.

The dog is waiting in front of the house.

Breakdown of Der Hund wartet vor dem Haus.

• dem: the; (masculine or neuter, dative)
• das Haus: the house
• der Hund: the dog
• warten: to wait
• vor: over

Questions & Answers about Der Hund wartet vor dem Haus.

Why is it Der Hund and not Den Hund or Dem Hund?

Der Hund is the subject of the sentence – the one doing the action (waiting).
In German, subjects take the nominative case.

• der Hund = nominative (subject)
• den Hund = accusative (direct object)
• dem Hund = dative (indirect object)

In this sentence, the dog is not an object of any verb or preposition; he is the one who waits.
So the correct form is Der Hund (nominative).

Why does the verb look like wartet and not warte or warten?

The verb warten (to wait) is conjugated according to the subject.

Present tense of warten:

• ich warte – I wait
• du wartest – you (singular informal) wait
• er / sie / es wartet – he / she / it waits
• wir warten – we wait
• ihr wartet – you (plural informal) wait
• sie / Sie warten – they / you (formal) wait

The subject here is der Hund (3rd person singular), so we use wartet:

• Der Hund wartet … = The dog waits / is waiting …

The English translation is The dog is waiting…. Why doesn’t German use a special form like “is waiting”?

German normally uses one single present tense form for both:

• Der Hund wartet
  = The dog waits
  or The dog is waiting

Context decides whether you understand it as a habitual action (he usually waits there) or something happening right now (he is currently waiting).

German does have progressive-like expressions (e.g. Der Hund ist am Warten), but they are much less common and not the standard way to say this.
Der Hund wartet already covers is waiting.

Why is it vor dem Haus and not vor das Haus?

Vor is a two-way preposition, which can take:

• dative for a location (where something is)
• accusative for a direction / movement (to where something is going)

In the sentence:

• vor dem Haus = in front of the house (location, no movement) → dative

If we showed movement to a position in front of the house, we would use accusative:

• Der Hund läuft vor das Haus.
  = The dog runs to in front of the house.

So:

• vor dem Haus (dative) → where he is waiting
• vor das Haus (accusative) → where he is moving to

Why is it dem Haus and not das Haus?

The basic form of the noun is:

• das Haus = the house (nominative, neuter)

After the preposition vor (here indicating location), we need the dative case.
For a neuter singular noun like Haus, the definite article changes like this:

• Nominative: das Haus
• Accusative: das Haus
• Dative: dem Haus
• Genitive: des Hauses

Because of vor + location → dative, we get vor dem Haus.

Is Haus masculine, feminine, or neuter? How can I tell?

Haus is neuter in German:

• das Haus (nominative singular)
• die Häuser (nominative plural)

There’s no reliable rule that lets you always predict the gender of a noun; you usually have to learn the noun with its article:

• das Haus – house
• der Hund – dog (masculine)
• die Katze – cat (feminine)

Here, the form dem in vor dem Haus also shows you that Haus is neuter singular in the dative case.

Why is Haus capitalized?

In German, all nouns are capitalized, no matter where they appear in the sentence:

• Der Hund wartet vor dem Haus.
• Ich sehe das Haus.
• Häuser sind teuer.

So Hund and Haus are capitalized simply because they are nouns.

Can I change the word order and say Vor dem Haus wartet der Hund?

Yes, that is perfectly correct German.

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

• Exactly one element comes before the conjugated verb.
• The conjugated verb comes in second position.
• The rest of the elements can follow in various orders.

Two correct versions:

1. Der Hund wartet vor dem Haus.
   (Subject in first position)

2. Vor dem Haus wartet der Hund.
   (Prepositional phrase in first position)

Both mean the same. The second version just puts a bit more emphasis on where the dog is.

Does warten need auf? I often see auf with warten, like auf den Bus warten.

There are two different ideas:

1. Warten + location (where someone is waiting)
   – just warten

   • a place expression
   • Der Hund wartet vor dem Haus.
   • Ich warte im Café.

2. Warten auf + accusative (to wait for something/someone)
   – warten auf

   • object
   • Der Hund wartet auf seinen Besitzer.
     = The dog is waiting for his owner.
   • Ich warte auf den Bus.
     = I am waiting for the bus.

In your sentence, the focus is where the dog is, not what he is waiting for, so we only need warten plus the location phrase vor dem Haus.

Could I just say Der Hund wartet without vor dem Haus?

Yes. Der Hund wartet. is a completely correct sentence.

Meaning:

• Der Hund wartet. = The dog is waiting.
  (No information about where.)

Adding vor dem Haus simply gives more detail about the location:

• Der Hund wartet vor dem Haus.

What is vorm Haus that I sometimes see instead of vor dem Haus?

Vorm is a contraction of vor dem:

• vor dem Haus → vorm Haus

Both mean in front of the house.

• vor dem Haus is a bit more neutral and standard.
• vorm Haus is common in spoken German and informal writing.

Grammatically, both use the dative; it’s just a different form of writing/pronouncing the same words.

If the dog is female, would the sentence change?

Yes, if you want to explicitly mention a female dog, you typically use Hündin (bitch, female dog):

• Die Hündin wartet vor dem Haus.

Changes:

• die instead of der, because Hündin is feminine.
• The rest of the sentence stays the same.

If you keep der Hund, that usually means a dog in general or a male dog by default.

How do you pronounce Der Hund wartet vor dem Haus?

Approximate pronunciation (in English-like spelling):

• Der → like dair (but shorter)
• Hund → like hoond (u as in book, final d is quite hard, close to t)
• wartet → VAR-tet (first a like in father, r pronounced, final t clearly)
• vor → like for but with f sound (German v here is /f/)
• dem → like dame (but with a short e, closer to dem)
• Haus → like house (the au as in English house)

Linked together at normal speed:

• Der Hund wartet vor dem Haus.
  → roughly: Dair hoond VAR-tet for dem house.