Questions & Answers about Morgen machen wir eine Tour in den Wald.
Why does the sentence start with Morgen and not with Wir?
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.