Breakdown of An deiner Stelle würde ich diese Ausspracheübung jeden Tag wiederholen.
Questions & Answers about An deiner Stelle würde ich diese Ausspracheübung jeden Tag wiederholen.
An deiner Stelle is a fixed idiomatic expression meaning “in your place / if I were you.”
- Stelle here means position / place / situation, not “physical seat.”
- English says “in your place,” but German uses an with Stelle: an deiner Stelle.
- In deinem Platz is incorrect; Platz is the physical place/seat, and the expression is not formed that way.
- You can say wenn ich an deiner Stelle wäre, … (“if I were in your place”), which is the full form behind the shorter phrase an deiner Stelle würde ich ….
- Wenn ich du wäre is heard colloquially, but wenn ich an deiner Stelle wäre is more idiomatic and clearly correct.
Three things are happening:
- Stelle is grammatically feminine: die Stelle.
- The preposition an with the meaning “at / in (a figurative position)” takes the dative case here.
- Feminine dative singular is der, so with a possessive it becomes deiner.
Declension pattern:
- Nominative: die Stelle / deine Stelle
- Accusative: die Stelle / deine Stelle
- Dative: der Stelle / deiner Stelle ← what we have in the sentence
- Genitive: der Stelle / deiner Stelle
So an (wo?) → dative → an deiner Stelle.
Stelle has several meanings; here it is “place / position / situation” in a figurative sense:
- an deiner Stelle = in your place, in your situation
- It does not mean “job” in this sentence, although Stelle can mean “job/post”:
- Ich habe eine neue Stelle gefunden. = I found a new job.
Other common uses:
- an dieser Stelle = at this point (in a text / argument)
- an seiner Stelle = in his place
So here Stelle refers to the role or situation of the other person, not employment.
German has the verb-second (V2) rule in main clauses: the conjugated verb must be in second position, but “second” means second element, not second word.
- Element 1: An deiner Stelle (a whole prepositional phrase)
- Element 2: würde (the finite verb)
- Element 3: ich (the subject)
So:
- An deiner Stelle würde ich …
is the same basic word order as - Ich würde an deiner Stelle …
In both versions, the conjugated verb würde is in second position.
The sentence is giving advice in a hypothetical situation (“if I were you”). In German that usually uses Konjunktiv II, often in the würde + infinitive form:
- An deiner Stelle würde ich … = If I were you, I would …
Alternatives:
- An deiner Stelle wiederholte ich diese Übung jeden Tag.
This uses the synthetic Konjunktiv II (wiederholte) and is grammatically fine, but sounds more formal / written. - An deiner Stelle wiederhole ich diese Übung jeden Tag.
This is simple present; it sounds more like a general habit statement and is less clearly hypothetical/advice-like.
Using würde + infinitive is the most natural for spoken advice.
You can say it, and people will understand you, but the nuance changes:
- An deiner Stelle würde ich …
→ clear hypothetical advice (“If I were you, I would …”). - An deiner Stelle wiederhole ich …
→ grammatically OK, but it sounds more like you’re stating what you “do” in that role; it can feel a bit odd as advice.
For polite, typical advice, the version with würde is by far the most standard:
- An deiner Stelle würde ich diese Ausspracheübung jeden Tag wiederholen.
Because of gender + case:
- Übung is feminine: die Übung.
- Ausspracheübung inherits that gender (last part of the compound), so also feminine: die Ausspracheübung.
- In the sentence, the exercise is the direct object of wiederholen, so it’s in the accusative case.
Feminine singular:
- Nominative: die / diese Ausspracheübung
- Accusative: die / diese Ausspracheübung
So the correct demonstrative is diese here.
German very often forms compound nouns by simply gluing words together:
- Aussprache (pronunciation) + Übung (exercise)
→ Ausspracheübung (pronunciation exercise)
Rules/notes:
- In compounds, only the last element decides the gender and plural:
- die Übung → die Ausspracheübung
- Plural: die Ausspracheübungen
- Writing it as two separate nouns (Aussprache Übung) is incorrect in standard German; it must be one word.
The plural follows the pattern of Übung → Übungen:
- Singular: die Ausspracheübung
- Plural: die Ausspracheübungen
With diese:
- Singular accusative: Ich wiederhole diese Ausspracheübung.
- Plural accusative: Ich wiederhole diese Ausspracheübungen.
Notice that in the plural, diese stays the same in nominative and accusative; the plural is shown on the noun itself (-en).
Tag is masculine: der Tag.
In the phrase jeden Tag, Tag is in the accusative, because it’s a time expression used as an adverb (“every day”).
Masculine singular:
- Nominative: jeder Tag (rare; normally you’d say jeder Tag ist anders = every day is different)
- Accusative: jeden Tag (time expression: Ich lerne jeden Tag.)
Time expressions like jeden Tag, jede Woche, jedes Jahr are almost always accusative.
Both mean “every day / daily,” but they’re used slightly differently:
- jeden Tag = literally each day, slightly more concrete:
- Ich wiederhole diese Übung jeden Tag.
- täglich = daily, a bit more adverb-like and compact:
- Ich wiederhole diese Übung täglich.
In your sentence, both work:
- An deiner Stelle würde ich diese Ausspracheübung jeden Tag wiederholen.
- An deiner Stelle würde ich diese Ausspracheübung täglich wiederholen.
Style difference is small; jeden Tag is a bit more conversational.
German places:
- the conjugated (finite) verb in second position (here: würde), and
- all other verb forms (infinitives, participles, etc.) at the end of the clause.
So:
- An deiner Stelle (1st element)
- würde (2nd element – finite verb)
- ich diese Ausspracheübung jeden Tag (middle field)
- wiederholen (non-finite verb at the end)
This is the standard pattern for sentences with modal-like verbs or würde-Konjunktiv.
In the meaning “to repeat,” wiederholen is treated as an inseparable verb:
- Ich wiederhole die Übung.
- Ich habe die Übung wiederholt. (no “ge” between prefix and stem)
There is a rare separable verb wieder holen (“to fetch again”), but that’s a different meaning:
- Ich hole das Buch wieder. = I’ll fetch the book again.
In your sentence we clearly mean “repeat the pronunciation exercise”, so it’s the inseparable verb wiederholen, which stays together and goes as one chunk to the end in infinitive form.
Yes. Adverbials of time like jeden Tag are fairly flexible. All of these are acceptable:
- An deiner Stelle würde ich diese Ausspracheübung jeden Tag wiederholen.
- An deiner Stelle würde ich jeden Tag diese Ausspracheübung wiederholen.
- An deiner Stelle würde ich diese Ausspracheübung wiederholen, jeden Tag. (the last one is more like an afterthought/emphasis)
Neutral, common options are the first two; placing jeden Tag just before the verb or just before the object are both fine. The meaning doesn’t really change.