Learn Hardcore German: Morgen machen wir eine Tour in den Wald. - Tomorrow we are going on a tour into the forest.

German has a verb-second rule in main clauses: the conjugated verb must be in the second position, but almost anything can stand in the first position.

So you can say:

Wir machen morgen eine Tour in den Wald.
Morgen machen wir eine Tour in den Wald.
In den Wald machen wir morgen eine Tour.

All are correct. The difference is emphasis:

Starting with Wir: neutral, slight focus on we.
Starting with Morgen: emphasizes when it happens.
Starting with In den Wald: emphasizes where you’re going.

In your sentence, Morgen is in first position, so machen must be second: Morgen machen wir …

Is Morgen here “tomorrow” or “morning”? And why is it capitalized?

There are two different words:

morgen (lowercase): adverb = tomorrow
der Morgen (noun, capitalized): the morning

At the beginning of a sentence, the first letter is always capitalized, even for words that are normally lowercase. So:

Inside a sentence: Wir fahren morgen in den Wald. (tomorrow)
At the start: Morgen fahren wir in den Wald.

In your sentence Morgen machen wir eine Tour in den Wald., Morgen is the adverb tomorrow. It just looks like the noun because it’s at the beginning. Context tells you it means tomorrow, not the morning.

Why do you use machen here? Could you also say gehen or nehmen?

Machen is very common in German for a lot of activities and is often used where English has different verbs:

eine Tour machen = (to) do / go on / take a tour
einen Ausflug machen = (to) go on an excursion
eine Reise machen = (to) take a trip

You could say other things, but the meaning changes slightly:

Morgen gehen wir in den Wald.
Focus on the act of going (walking) into the forest; no explicit mention of a “tour”.
Morgen machen wir eine Tour in den Wald.
Emphasizes the organized / planned trip aspect.
Morgen machen wir eine Tour durch den Wald.
Focus on a tour through the forest (moving within it).

Nehmen is possible in some contexts: Wir nehmen morgen an einer Tour in den Wald teil. (“We are taking part in a tour into the forest.”) but that’s a different structure and sounds more like joining an organized group tour.

Why do you say eine Tour and not just Tour with no article?

In German, singular countable nouns almost always need an article (or another determiner like diese, meine, etc.).

So:

Correct: Wir machen morgen eine Tour in den Wald.
Incorrect / very odd: Wir machen morgen Tour in den Wald.

Leaving out the article is only natural in special cases, for example:

Headlines: Morgen Tour in den Wald
Certain fixed expressions: Auto fahren, Schule haben, etc.

But in normal full sentences with Tour as a countable thing, you need eine (or die, unsere, etc.).

Why is it eine Tour and not ein Tour?

Because Tour is feminine in German:

die Tour – the tour
eine Tour – a tour

The indefinite article ein- changes with gender and case:

Masculine: ein (Nominative), einen (Accusative)
Neuter: ein (Nominative & Accusative)
Feminine: eine (Nominative & Accusative)

Here, eine Tour is the direct object of machen (Accusative). Feminine in the accusative is eine, same form as the nominative: eine Tour.

Why is it in den Wald and not im Wald or in dem Wald?

The preposition in can take dative or accusative:

Dative = location (where something is)
Accusative = direction / movement (where something is going to)

Compare:

Wir sind im Wald.
We are in the forest (location → dative: in dem Wald = im Wald).
Wir gehen in den Wald.
We go into the forest (movement/direction → accusative: in den Wald).

In Morgen machen wir eine Tour in den Wald., the tour goes into the forest, so it expresses direction. That’s why in den (accusative) is used, not im / in dem (dative).

Why den Wald and not der Wald?

Wald is a masculine noun:

Nominative: der Wald – the forest
Accusative: den Wald – (to/into) the forest

After in with movement, we need accusative, so the article changes:

in den Wald = into the forest (masculine accusative)
If it were purely location: im Wald = in dem Wald (masculine dative)

So der Wald becomes den Wald because of the accusative case.

Could I also say Morgen machen wir eine Tour zum Wald? What’s the difference from in den Wald?

You can say zum Wald (short for zu dem Wald), but it’s a bit different:

in den Wald: clearly into the forest, inside it.
zum Wald: to(wards) the forest, to the edge or general area; it does not necessarily say you go into it.

So:

If the tour includes walking inside the forest, in den Wald is the natural choice.
If you only go up to the forest (e.g. to a hut at the edge), zum Wald might be used.

Is this sentence in the present or future tense? How do Germans talk about the future here?

Grammatically, the sentence is in the present tense:

machen = present tense (wir machen = we do / we are doing).

But in German, it is very common to use the present tense with a future time expression to talk about the future:

Morgen machen wir eine Tour in den Wald.
= Tomorrow we’re going on a tour into the forest.

You could also say:

Morgen werden wir eine Tour in den Wald machen.

This uses the future tense (werden + infinitive), but in everyday speech the present + time word (morgen) is more natural.

Can I change the word order to Wir machen morgen eine Tour in den Wald? Is there any difference?

Yes, Wir machen morgen eine Tour in den Wald. is completely correct.

Differences:

Morgen machen wir eine Tour in den Wald.
Emphasizes tomorrow a bit more (time in first position).
Wir machen morgen eine Tour in den Wald.
Slightly more neutral; starts with the subject wir.

Both follow the verb-second rule:

First version: Morgen (1st), machen (2nd), wir … (rest).
Second version: Wir (1st), machen (2nd), morgen … (rest).

What’s the plural of Wald, and how would the sentence change if we talked about several forests?

The plural of Wald is Wälder:

Singular: der Wald – in den Wald (accusative singular)
Plural: die Wälder – in die Wälder (accusative plural)

So the sentence would be:

Morgen machen wir eine Tour in die Wälder.
= Tomorrow we’re going on a tour into the forests.

Notice the changes:

Noun: Wald → Wälder
Article in accusative: singular den → plural die

Is Tour really a German word? It looks like English. How is it pronounced?

Tour is a loanword (originally from French), but it is fully used in German.

Meaning: similar to English tour — trip, round, route, guided tour, etc.

Pronunciation in German:

IPA: /tuːɐ̯/ (roughly “too-uh” but very short uh)
Like the English tour, but usually with:
- A clearer long u sound: tuː
- A German-style r, often not strongly pronounced in many accents at the end.

So eine Tour sounds roughly like “EYE-nuh too-uh” (but with a smoother ending).

Is there a difference between eine Tour, einen Ausflug, and eine Wanderung in this kind of sentence?

Yes, there are nuance differences:

eine Tour
Very general: a tour / trip / route. Can be by foot, bike, car, bus, etc. Often sounds somewhat planned or structured.
einen Ausflug (masculine: einen Ausflug machen)
= an excursion / outing. Usually a leisure trip somewhere, often for a few hours or a day.
eine Wanderung
= a hike. Specifically walking, usually in nature, often longer and more physical.

Examples:

Morgen machen wir eine Tour in den Wald.
A rather neutral “tour/trip into the forest” (could be walking, cycling, etc.).
Morgen machen wir einen Ausflug in den Wald.
A nice outing/excursion into the forest.
Morgen machen wir eine Wanderung im Wald.
A hike in the forest (strong focus on walking).