Breakdown of In meiner Stadt mache ich im Ehrenamt Hausaufgabenbetreuung für Kinder.
Questions & Answers about In meiner Stadt mache ich im Ehrenamt Hausaufgabenbetreuung für Kinder.
German main clauses follow the verb-second rule: the conjugated verb must be in the second position in the sentence.
- In meiner Stadt mache ich im Ehrenamt Hausaufgabenbetreuung für Kinder.
- 1st position: In meiner Stadt (a whole phrase counts as one position)
- 2nd position: mache (the verb)
- Then comes: ich im Ehrenamt Hausaufgabenbetreuung für Kinder
You can absolutely also say:
- Ich mache in meiner Stadt im Ehrenamt Hausaufgabenbetreuung für Kinder.
Both are correct. The difference is emphasis:
- In meiner Stadt mache ich … → emphasizes where you do this.
- Ich mache in meiner Stadt … → neutral; just states what you do.
What you cannot say is:
- ✗ In meiner Stadt ich mache im Ehrenamt … (verb is no longer in second position, so it’s ungrammatical).
The ending -er in meiner comes from the case:
- The preposition in can take dative (location) or accusative (movement).
- Here it means a location (“in my city” = where?), so it uses dative.
- Stadt is feminine: die Stadt (nom. sing.).
Feminine dative singular of mein is:
- Nominative: meine Stadt
- Dative: meiner Stadt
So:
- in meiner Stadt = in + dative feminine → meiner.
“Im Ehrenamt” means roughly “in a voluntary capacity / as a volunteer”.
Grammar:
- in dem Ehrenamt (in + dative neuter article dem)
→ contracted in speech and writing to im Ehrenamt - Ehrenamt is neuter: das Ehrenamt
- “honorary office” / unpaid voluntary position (often in a club, association, charity etc.)
Idiomatic uses:
- im Ehrenamt arbeiten / tätig sein / engagiert sein
→ to work / be active / be engaged on a voluntary basis
So “ich mache im Ehrenamt …” = “I do this as (part of) voluntary work,” not as a paid job.
Yes, you could rephrase the sentence as:
- In meiner Stadt mache ich ehrenamtlich Hausaufgabenbetreuung für Kinder.
Difference:
- im Ehrenamt
- emphasizes that you have some formal voluntary role/position (e.g. in an organization).
- ehrenamtlich
- is an adjective/adverb meaning “voluntary, unpaid”; it describes how you do the work.
In everyday language they overlap a lot. If you simply mean “I do this as volunteer work,” both are usually fine, but im Ehrenamt can sound a bit more institutional/formal.
Hausaufgabenbetreuung is a compound noun:
- Hausaufgaben = homework (plural; literally “house tasks”)
- Betreuung = care, supervision, support
Put together:
- Hausaufgabenbetreuung = homework supervision / homework help / homework support
(e.g. an after-school program where children do their homework with help)
Grammar details:
- Gender: die Hausaufgabenbetreuung (feminine)
- Plural: die Hausaufgabenbetreuungen (rare; usually talked about in the singular as an activity)
German very often makes long compound nouns like this: [thing] + Betreuung, [thing] + Hilfe, etc.
machen is a very common, flexible “light verb” in German. Here, it works like:
- Hausaufgabenbetreuung machen = “to do homework supervision/homework help.”
It’s idiomatic and natural, especially when talking about types of work or activities.
However, you could also say:
- Ich betreue Kinder bei den Hausaufgaben.
→ I supervise/help children with their homework. - Ich helfe Kindern bei den Hausaufgaben.
→ I help children with their homework. - Ich mache im Ehrenamt Hausaufgabenhilfe für Kinder.
→ using Hausaufgabenhilfe instead of Hausaufgabenbetreuung.
So “machen … Hausaufgabenbetreuung” is fine, but you do have more specific verb options if you want to focus on the helping action (betreuen, helfen) rather than the type of service.
für always takes the accusative case.
- für wen? → for whom?
- Answer: für Kinder (for children).
Kinder is the accusative plural of das Kind:
- Nominative plural: die Kinder
- Accusative plural: die Kinder (same form)
So “für Kinder” is “for children” in the accusative, required by the preposition für.
In German, you often omit the article when talking about an activity or service in general, especially with machen + activity.
Examples:
- Ich mache Sport. (I do sports.)
- Ich mache Yoga. (I do yoga.)
- Ich mache Praktikum. (colloquial for “I’m doing an internship.”)
- Ich mache Nachhilfe. (I give private lessons.)
Similarly:
- Ich mache Hausaufgabenbetreuung. → I do (some) homework supervision/help.
If you say:
- Ich leite eine Hausaufgabenbetreuung für Kinder.
→ “I run a/one specific homework-help program for children.”
Then eine points to a specific, countable program. In the original sentence, the focus is on the type of activity, not on a specific “instance” of it, so no article is natural.
Because of the verb-second rule in German main clauses:
- One constituent (subject, object, time/place phrase, etc.) comes first.
- The conjugated verb must be second.
- The subject doesn’t have to be first, but the verb must stay in second position.
So:
In meiner Stadt mache ich … ✅
(1st: In meiner Stadt, 2nd: mache)In meiner Stadt ich mache … ❌
(1st: In meiner Stadt, 2nd: ich, 3rd: mache → verb is not second)
This is a core word-order rule in German.
Can I change the order of “im Ehrenamt” and “für Kinder”? For example:
“In meiner Stadt mache ich für Kinder im Ehrenamt Hausaufgabenbetreuung.”
Yes, you can reorder the prepositional phrases, and it’s still grammatically correct. For example:
- In meiner Stadt mache ich im Ehrenamt Hausaufgabenbetreuung für Kinder.
- In meiner Stadt mache ich für Kinder im Ehrenamt Hausaufgabenbetreuung.
- In meiner Stadt mache ich Hausaufgabenbetreuung im Ehrenamt für Kinder.
All work. Typical preferences:
- Germans often put more general information (place, role) earlier and more specific (for whom?) later.
- The original “… im Ehrenamt Hausaufgabenbetreuung für Kinder” sounds natural and focused:
role → activity → target group.
Changing the order may slightly shift the emphasis, but it does not change the basic meaning.
You might hear colloquial phrases like:
- Ich mache Ehrenamt.
→ roughly: “I do voluntary work.”
But more standard/natural are:
- Ich engagiere mich im Ehrenamt.
- Ich bin im Ehrenamt tätig.
- Ich arbeite ehrenamtlich.
So:
- im Ehrenamt → sounds more standard/formal, refers to being active in some voluntary role.
- Ehrenamt machen → understandable but a bit looser/colloquial; not as idiomatic as “im Ehrenamt arbeiten/tätig sein”.
The original “mache ich im Ehrenamt Hausaufgabenbetreuung” is idiomatic because machen belongs to Hausaufgabenbetreuung (the activity), and im Ehrenamt just describes the capacity in which you do it.
The preposition in is a two-way preposition (Wechselpräposition): it can take dative or accusative.
- Dative → location, where something is
- Wo? (Where?)
- Ich bin in meiner Stadt. (I am in my city.)
- Accusative → movement/direction, where something is going
- Wohin? (Where to?)
- Ich fahre in meine Stadt. (I’m going to my city.)
In the sentence:
- In meiner Stadt mache ich …
We answer “Where do I do this?” → location → dative → meiner Stadt.
If it described a movement, we would see the accusative:
- Ich ziehe in meine Stadt zurück. (I’m moving back to my city.)