Questions & Answers about Diese Geschichte ist erfunden.
Both are possible, but they feel slightly different:
- die Geschichte ist erfunden = the story is made up (neutral, just stating a fact)
- diese Geschichte ist erfunden = this story is made up (pointing at a specific story, often with a bit more emphasis: “this one (here) is made up”)
Diese is a demonstrative determiner, like this/that, and draws attention to the specific story you’re talking about, maybe contrasting it with others.
Because of gender, number, and case:
- Geschichte is feminine.
- It’s singular.
- In this sentence, it is the subject → nominative case.
So you need:
diese (feminine nominative singular) + Geschichte
The relevant forms of dies- in the nominative are:
- masculine: dieser Mann
- feminine: diese Geschichte
- neuter: dieses Buch
- plural: diese Geschichten
Geschichte is feminine: die Geschichte.
You can’t always predict gender from the ending, but some endings are often feminine. Many nouns ending in -e are feminine (though not all). You usually have to learn the noun together with its article:
- die Geschichte (feminine, “story; history”)
- plural: die Geschichten
In this sentence, diese already signals that Geschichte is not masculine or neuter, because then it would be dieser or dieses.
In German, all nouns are capitalized.
Geschichte is a noun (“story, history”), so it must start with a capital G.
Adjectives, verbs, and other words are normally not capitalized in the middle of a sentence, so diese, ist, and erfunden stay lowercase.
It can mean both in general:
- eine Geschichte erzählen – to tell a story
- die Geschichte Deutschlands – the history of Germany
In Diese Geschichte ist erfunden, the natural reading is story:
This story is made up / fictional.
German uses context to distinguish story vs history, just like English does with history vs a history sometimes.
Erfunden is the past participle of erfinden:
- erfinden – to invent, to make up (a story), to think up
- erfunden – invented / made up
In this sentence, erfunden means made up / not true / fictional, not “invented” in the technical-patent sense. So:
- Diese Geschichte ist erfunden.
= This story is made up / not true / fictional.
It can be analysed in two ways, but the meaning is almost the same:
State passive (Zustandspassiv) with sein:
- Verb: erfinden – to invent
- Past participle: erfunden
- Die Geschichte ist erfunden.
= The story is (in the state of being) invented / made up.
Predicate adjective: erfunden used like an adjective meaning “made up”:
- Die Geschichte ist interessant.
- Die Geschichte ist erfunden.
In practice, learners can treat ist erfunden here like “is made up” – a description of the story’s nature, not an ongoing action.
Those use werden, which often expresses an action passive:
- Die Geschichte wird erfunden.
= The story is being invented (right now). - Die Geschichte wurde erfunden.
= The story was invented (at some time in the past).
But Diese Geschichte ist erfunden. talks about the resulting state (“it’s a made-up story”), not the process of inventing it. That’s why German uses sein + Partizip II (ist erfunden) instead of werden.
German main clauses follow the verb-second (V2) rule:
- The finite verb (here ist) must be in second position in the clause.
- The first position can be the subject or something else (an adverb, object, etc.).
Here:
- Diese Geschichte – first element
- ist – finite verb (must be second)
- erfunden – rest of the predicate
So Diese Geschichte ist erfunden follows the standard V2 word order for statements.
Formally, erfunden is the past participle (Partizip II) of the verb erfinden.
Functionally, in this sentence it behaves like an adjective that describes the noun Geschichte:
- eine erfundene Geschichte – an invented / made-up story
- Diese Geschichte ist erfunden. – This story is made up.
So it’s a verb form used adjectivally (or as part of a state passive). Both views are grammatically valid; for using the language, it’s enough to feel it as “an adjective formed from a verb”.
Yes, but there is a nuance:
- erfunden – neutral, standard, works in writing and speech.
- ausgedacht – also “made up”, a bit more colloquial / everyday-sounding.
Both are commonly used:
- Diese Geschichte ist erfunden. – This story is made up.
- Diese Geschichte ist ausgedacht. – This story is made up / thought up.
You can also use:
- Diese Geschichte ist fiktiv. – This story is fictional. (more formal / literary)
Plural:
- stories → Geschichten
- these → diese (plural nominative)
- are → sind
So:
- Diese Geschichten sind erfunden.
= These stories are made up.
Approximate pronunciation (standard German):
Geschichte: /ɡəˈʃɪçtə/
- Ge- → like gə
- -schi- → like shi in “ship” (but shorter)
- -ch- → a soft “ch” sound (like the German ich-sound, not like English “k”)
- -te → like tə
erfunden: /ɛɐ̯ˈfʊndn̩/
- er- → like air but shorter
- -fun- → like foon but with u as in “put”
- -den → the e is very weak, almost just dn
Together, the stress is on -schich- in Geschichte and on -fun- in erfunden:
- Diese GeSCHICHte ist erFUNden.