Breakdown of In dieser Wohnung fühle ich mich ruhig.
Questions & Answers about In dieser Wohnung fühle ich mich ruhig.
German main clauses follow the V2 rule: the conjugated verb must be in the second position, but the first position can be almost anything (subject, time, place, etc.).
In dieser Wohnung fühle ich mich ruhig.
– first position: In dieser Wohnung
– second position: fühle (the verb)Ich fühle mich in dieser Wohnung ruhig.
– first position: Ich
– second position: fühle
Both sentences are grammatically correct. The difference is emphasis:
- Starting with Ich emphasizes I.
- Starting with In dieser Wohnung emphasizes the place as the important part (e.g. In this particular apartment, I feel calm – maybe not in others).
In German, sich fühlen + adjective is the standard way to say to feel [adjective] about your own physical or emotional state.
- Ich fühle mich ruhig. = I feel calm.
- Ich fühle mich müde. = I feel tired.
- Ich fühle mich krank. = I feel ill.
Without the reflexive pronoun, fühlen usually means to feel (something) with your senses:
- Ich fühle den Wind. = I feel the wind.
- Ich fühle nichts. = I feel nothing.
So fühle ich ruhig is ungrammatical in this sense. You need mich:
In dieser Wohnung fühle ich mich ruhig.
Both can translate to I am calm, but the nuance is different:
Ich fühle mich ruhig.
– Focuses on your subjective feeling.
– Similar to English I feel calm.Ich bin ruhig.
– States a characteristic or condition more objectively.
– Can also mean I am being quiet / not noisy in some contexts.
In your sentence, fühle ich mich ruhig stresses your inner state in that apartment. Saying In dieser Wohnung bin ich ruhig is also possible, but it can sound a bit more like a factual statement than a personal feeling.
The form dieser is required by case, gender, and number:
- Wohnung is feminine: die Wohnung
- The preposition in can take dative when it indicates location (where?).
- Location here is clearly static: in this apartment (located there), not movement into it.
- So you need dative feminine singular.
The dative feminine singular of diese is dieser:
- Nominative: diese Wohnung (this apartment – subject)
- Accusative: diese Wohnung (I see this apartment)
- Dative: in dieser Wohnung (in this apartment)
- Genitive: wegen dieser Wohnung (because of this apartment)
So In dieser Wohnung is the correct form.
The preposition in can take either dative or accusative, depending on meaning:
- Dative = location (where?)
- Accusative = movement towards a place (where to?)
Compare:
Ich bin in dieser Wohnung.
– Where am I? → location → dative (dieser Wohnung)Ich gehe in diese Wohnung.
– Where am I going? → direction → accusative (diese Wohnung)
Your sentence describes how you feel while being in that apartment, not moving into it:
- In dieser Wohnung fühle ich mich ruhig.
– You are located there → dative.
For reflexive verbs, German uses accusative or dative reflexive pronouns, depending on the verb structure.
For sich fühlen, the reflexive pronoun is accusative:
- ich → mich
- du → dich
- er/sie/es → sich
- wir → uns
- ihr → euch
- sie/Sie → sich
So:
- Ich fühle mich ruhig.
- Du fühlst dich ruhig.
- Er fühlt sich ruhig.
Mir is the dative reflexive for ich, used with verbs that require a dative reflexive, like:
- Ich wasche mir die Hände. = I wash my hands.
(literally: I wash myself the hands.)
But fühlen takes accusative, so it must be mich, not mir.
Ruhig can mean both calm and quiet, depending on context.
Common meanings:
Emotionally calm / not nervous
- Ich fühle mich ruhig. = I feel calm.
Not noisy / quiet
- Die Straße ist ruhig. = The street is quiet.
In your sentence, fühle ich mich ruhig clearly refers to an inner emotional state, so the best English sense is calm or at peace.
If you wanted to emphasize the apartment being not noisy, you would more likely say:
- Die Wohnung ist ruhig. = The apartment is quiet.
In Ich fühle mich ruhig, ruhig is a predicate adjective, not an attributive one.
Predicate adjective: comes after a verb like sein, werden, bleiben, scheinen, aussehen, sich fühlen, etc.
– It does not change its ending:- Ich bin ruhig.
- Du bist ruhig.
- Sie sind ruhig.
Attributive adjective: comes directly before a noun, and takes an ending:
- eine ruhige Wohnung (a calm/quiet apartment)
- die ruhige Wohnung
- in einer ruhigen Wohnung
Because ruhig describes how ich feels via the verb sich fühlen, it is predicate and stays in its base form ruhig.
Yes, In dieser Wohnung bin ich ruhig is grammatically correct and natural.
Nuance:
- fühle ich mich ruhig → focuses on your subjective feeling in that environment.
- bin ich ruhig → states a fact: you are calm/quiet there; can sound slightly more objective or behavioral.
Both are fine; sich fühlen just highlights the inner experience a bit more.
Yes, this is also correct:
- Ich fühle mich ruhig in dieser Wohnung.
Word order in the middle field (between verb and sentence-final elements) is relatively flexible. Three common variants:
In dieser Wohnung fühle ich mich ruhig.
– Emphasis on the apartment.Ich fühle mich in dieser Wohnung ruhig.
– Fairly neutral; information flows from subject → place → state.Ich fühle mich ruhig in dieser Wohnung.
– Slightly more emphasis on ruhig, as if contrasting your state there with other places.
All three are grammatically fine; the choice mainly affects emphasis and style.
You need the preposition in to express location inside something.
- In dieser Wohnung = in this apartment (inside it)
- Diese Wohnung by itself is just this apartment as a noun phrase, not a place phrase.
Also, Diese Wohnung fühle ich mich ruhig is ungrammatical:
after fühlen (sich), the structure is [subject] + [verb] + [reflexive pronoun] + [adjective], not a direct noun like diese Wohnung.
You could say:
- In dieser Wohnung fühle ich mich ruhig.
- In dieser Wohnung bin ich ruhig.
but not Diese Wohnung fühle ich mich ruhig.