Mit welchem Freund gehst du heute in die Stadt?

With which friend are you going to the city today?

Breakdown of Mit welchem Freund gehst du heute in die Stadt?

• in: in
• mit: with
• gehen: to go
• heute: today
• du: you
• der Freund: the friend
• die Stadt: the city
• welchem: which

Questions & Answers about Mit welchem Freund gehst du heute in die Stadt?

What is the literal, word‑for‑word meaning of Mit welchem Freund gehst du heute in die Stadt?

A very literal breakdown would be:

• Mit – with
• welchem – which (dative masculine/neuter)
• Freund – friend
• gehst – (you) go / are going
• du – you
• heute – today
• in – into / to
• die – the (accusative feminine)
• Stadt – city / town

So: With which friend go you today into the city?
Natural English: Which friend are you going into town with today?

What case is Freund in, and why?

Freund is in the dative case here.

Reason: the preposition mit (with) always takes the dative case.
So the phrase mit + (which friend) must be dative:

• Nominative: welcher Freund (which friend – subject)
• Accusative: welchen Freund
• Dative: welchem Freund ✅

That is why it is mit welchem Freund, not mit welcher Freund or mit welchen Freund.

Why is it welchem and not welcher or welchen?

Welch- behaves like an adjective that changes its ending for gender, number, and case.

For Freund (masculine singular), the forms are:

• Nominative: welcher Freund – which friend (as subject)
• Accusative: welchen Freund – which friend (as direct object)
• Dative: welchem Freund – which friend (with/to/from…)

Because mit requires the dative, you must use the dative masculine form: welchem Freund.

Why does the sentence start with Mit welchem Freund and not with du?

German main clauses must be verb-second (V2): the conjugated verb is always in second position, but almost anything can come first.

Here, the speaker chooses to put the prepositional phrase first for emphasis:

1. Mit welchem Freund – first position (the “topic” of the question)
2. gehst – verb in second position
3. du – subject follows the verb

You could also say:

• Du gehst heute mit welchem Freund in die Stadt? – grammatically possible, but sounds unusual; it changes the nuance to something like disbelief/echo (You are going with which friend?).
• The standard question form is the original: Mit welchem Freund gehst du heute in die Stadt?

Why can’t I say Mit welchem Freund du gehst heute in die Stadt?

That word order is incorrect in a main clause because it breaks the verb-second rule.

In the correct sentence:

• First element: Mit welchem Freund
• Second element: gehst (the finite verb)

In your incorrect version:

• First: Mit welchem Freund
• Second: du
• Third: gehst

The verb has slipped into third position, which is not allowed in a normal main clause question in German.

Can I move heute to a different place in the sentence?

Yes. Heute (today) is fairly flexible. All of these are grammatically correct, with slightly different emphasis:

• Mit welchem Freund gehst du heute in die Stadt? – neutral, very natural.
• Mit welchem Freund gehst du in die Stadt heute? – possible, but the heute at the end can sound a bit marked or poetic.
• Heute, mit welchem Freund gehst du in die Stadt? – strong emphasis on today, more like: Today, which friend are you going into town with?

In everyday speech, the original version is the most typical.

Why is it in die Stadt and not in der Stadt?

Because in can take accusative or dative, depending on the meaning:

• Accusative (wohin? – where to?) → movement into something
• Dative (wo? – where?) → location in something

Here we talk about going to / into town, i.e. movement:

• in die Stadt – accusative (feminine singular) ✅

If you were talking about being located in the city, you’d use dative:

• Ich bin in der Stadt. – I am in the city/town.

What does in die Stadt really mean? Is it always literally “into the city”?

Literally, in die Stadt is into the city (movement towards/into the city).

Idiomatic meaning:

• Often just “into town” in English, not necessarily a big “city”
• It can mean going to the city center / downtown area to shop, meet people, etc.

So Mit welchem Freund gehst du heute in die Stadt? is usually understood as:
“Which friend are you going into town with today?”, not necessarily to a specific official “city”.

Why is Freund capitalized, but mit and heute are not?

In German:

• All nouns are capitalized: Freund, Stadt, Auto, Haus, etc.
• Most other word types (verbs, adjectives, prepositions, adverbs) are not capitalized in the middle of the sentence.

So:

• Freund – noun → capitalized
• Stadt – noun → capitalized
• mit, welchem, gehst, du, heute, in, die – not nouns → lower case (unless they start the sentence).

Does gehen here mean “to walk” or just “to go”?

In German:

• gehen literally means to go on foot / to walk.
• fahren is used for going by vehicle (car, bus, train, bike, etc.).

However, in everyday speech, people often use gehen more broadly, especially if the mode of transport is not important. Context decides whether it feels like “walk” or just “go”.

So Mit welchem Freund gehst du heute in die Stadt? can be understood as:

• “Which friend are you going into town with today?”
• Often implying on foot, but it doesn’t absolutely have to.

How could I answer this question in German?

A typical answer replaces the question word with specific information and adjusts the case:

• Ich gehe heute mit meinem Freund Max in die Stadt.
  
  • mit meinem Freund – dative masculine (because of mit)
• Or simply: Mit Max. (short answer)
• Or: Ich gehe heute mit meinem besten Freund in die Stadt. – my best friend

So you keep mit + dative in the answer.