Breakdown of Heute findet der Kurs online statt.
Questions & Answers about Heute findet der Kurs online statt.
Stattfinden is a separable verb in German. In the present tense main clause it splits:
- Infinitive: stattfinden
- 3rd person singular: es findet statt
It means “to take place / to be held” in the sense of events or appointments.
So:
- Heute findet der Kurs online statt.
= Today the course takes place online.
You can’t say “Heute stattfindet der Kurs online.” because in a main clause the finite verb (findet) must be in second position, and statt is the separable prefix that goes to the end of the clause.
German main clauses follow the V2 (verb-second) rule: the conjugated verb must be the second element in the clause.
An “element” can be a whole phrase:
- Heute – 1st element (an adverbial time phrase)
- findet – 2nd element (the conjugated verb)
- der Kurs online statt – the rest
If you don’t put Heute at the beginning, you still keep the verb in second position:
- Der Kurs findet heute online statt.
- Online findet der Kurs heute statt.
In all of these, the conjugated verb (findet) stays second.
Der Kurs is in the nominative case, because it is the subject of the sentence—the thing that “takes place”.
- Der Kurs (subject, nominative singular masculine)
- findet … statt (verb)
If the course were the object of another action, it could be den Kurs (accusative), for example:
- Ich besuche den Kurs. – I attend the course.
Here ich is the subject, and den Kurs is the direct object, so it takes the accusative.
In your sentence, der Kurs performs the action “taking place”, so nominative is required.
Heute ist der Kurs online is grammatically correct, but the nuance is a bit different.
Heute findet der Kurs online statt.
Focus: the event (the course session) is being held online today instead of in person. This is the standard way to talk about when and where an event takes place.Heute ist der Kurs online.
Focus: today, the course itself “is online”. This can be understood, but it sounds slightly less idiomatic as an announcement. It could also be interpreted as: today the course exists online (e.g., available on a website), not necessarily as a scheduled online session.
Native speakers overwhelmingly prefer „Der Kurs findet online statt“ (with or without heute) in the context of schedule and location changes.
In your sentence it’s:
- Heute findet der Kurs online statt.
Here online is an adverb of manner/place (“in an online format”), and with the separable verb stattfinden, it normally goes before the separated particle statt.
Other natural variants:
- Heute findet der Kurs nur online statt. – Today the course takes place only online.
- Der Kurs findet heute online statt.
- Der Kurs findet online heute statt. – grammatically possible but sounds odd; time adverbs (heute, morgen) usually come earlier.
The most neutral and common positions are:
- Heute findet der Kurs online statt.
- Der Kurs findet heute online statt.
In your sentence Heute is capitalized only because it is the first word of the sentence.
Normally, heute is an adverb and is written with a lowercase h:
- Ich komme heute nicht. – I’m not coming today.
All adverbs like heute, morgen, gestern, hier, dort are normally lowercase, except when:
- they begin a sentence (first word), or
- they are used as nouns in special cases (rare for heute).
So: heute in the middle of a sentence, Heute at the beginning.
German uses stattfinden as the standard verb for organized events:
- courses, meetings, concerts, exams, conferences, etc.
Examples:
- Das Konzert findet morgen statt. – The concert takes place tomorrow.
- Die Prüfung findet im Juli statt. – The exam takes place in July.
The verb passieren usually means “to happen (by chance)” and is more about accidental events:
- Ein Unfall ist passiert. – An accident happened.
So:
- Der Kurs findet online statt. ✅ (scheduled event)
- Der Kurs passiert online. ❌ (sounds wrong)
Yes, findet is present tense.
German very often uses the present tense + a time expression to talk about the future, especially for scheduled or fixed events:
- Morgen findet der Kurs im Raum 3 statt. – The course will be in room 3 tomorrow.
- Nächste Woche fliege ich nach Berlin. – I’m flying to Berlin next week.
You can form a future tense with werden:
- Heute wird der Kurs online stattfinden.
…but in everyday German this sounds more formal or emphatic and is usually unnecessary. Heute findet der Kurs online statt is the natural choice.
Approximate pronunciations (using English-like hints):
findet → [ˈfɪn-dət]
- fi like fin in finish
- second syllable is very short, almost like “finn-dit”
Kurs → [kʊrs]
- Ku like coo but shorter, like could without the d
- final rs pronounced together, s is unvoiced (like s in see)
online → [ˈɔn-laɪn] in German
- first syllable like on in British on (more open o),
- second syllable often pronounced roughly like English line.
You can, but the nuance is slightly different.
- online – the standard, modern word meaning via the internet / in an online format.
- im Internet – literally in the internet; this can mean the same thing, but it sounds a bit more literal or descriptive.
Typical usage:
- Heute findet der Kurs online statt. – Normal, very idiomatic modern phrasing.
- Heute findet der Kurs im Internet statt. – Understandable, but a bit less natural; often you’d use im Internet for content (Informationen im Internet finden), not for scheduled events.
So in announcements or emails, „Der Kurs findet online statt“ is clearly preferred.
You can analyze it like this:
- Heute – adverbial of time (fronted)
- findet – finite verb (present, 3rd person singular)
- der Kurs – subject (nominative singular masculine)
- online – adverbial of manner/place
- statt – separable prefix of the verb stattfinden
If you rearrange to the “neutral” order (subject first), you see the structure more clearly:
- Der Kurs findet heute online statt.
So the pattern is roughly:
- [Time] – V – Subject – [Other Information] – Separable Prefix
or - Subject – V – [Time] – [Manner/Place] – Separable Prefix