Breakdown of An der Hotline sagt eine Mitarbeiterin, dass es dazu noch keine offizielle Information gibt.
Questions & Answers about An der Hotline sagt eine Mitarbeiterin, dass es dazu noch keine offizielle Information gibt.
An der Hotline uses an + dative to mean at a service point / on the hotline (i.e., in contact with it). With things like counters, phones, lines, or institutions you interact with, German often uses an rather than in.
- an der Hotline = at the hotline / via the hotline
- in der Hotline would sound like you are inside the hotline (not idiomatic).
It’s dative. The preposition an can take either dative (location) or accusative (movement toward). Here it’s location/state (where is she speaking from?), so it’s an + dative:
- an der Hotline (dative, feminine die Hotline → der Hotline)
Compare: an die Hotline (accusative) = to the hotline (movement/goal).
Loanwords have grammatical gender in German. Hotline is commonly treated as feminine: die Hotline. There isn’t a “logical” reason you can derive every time; it’s something you learn with the noun.
Mitarbeiterin is the explicitly female form (female employee). German often marks gender in job titles:
- der Mitarbeiter = male employee (or sometimes generic, depending on context)
- die Mitarbeiterin = female employee
The sentence specifies that the employee is a woman.
German main clauses follow the V2 rule: the finite verb (here sagt) is in position 2, regardless of what comes first.
Structure here:
1) An der Hotline (topic/fronted element)
2) sagt (finite verb)
3) eine Mitarbeiterin (subject)
So fronting An der Hotline pushes the subject after the verb—this is normal.
dass introduces an object clause (a subordinate clause that functions like “that…” in English). It’s the content of what she says:
Eine Mitarbeiterin sagt, dass … = An employee says that …
In subordinate clauses introduced by conjunctions like dass, the finite verb typically goes to the end.
So instead of es gibt (main clause order), you get:
- Main clause: Es gibt keine offizielle Information.
- Subordinate clause: … dass es keine offizielle Information gibt.
Here es is a dummy/placeholder subject used with es gibt (there is/are). It usually doesn’t refer to a specific noun.
Es gibt … is the standard way to say there is/are … in German.
dazu means about that / regarding that / on that matter. It refers back to some previously mentioned topic.
Position-wise, dazu is an adverb and is commonly placed in the “middle field” before or after time adverbs like noch, depending on emphasis:
- dazu noch keine … = still no official information on that (topic)
You might also see: dazu gibt es noch keine … (same meaning, different emphasis).
noch means still / yet here. It suggests the situation may change later: there is currently no official information, but there may be one in the future.
Without noch, it would sound more like a neutral fact with less “for now” implication.
German generally negates nouns with an article using kein- (like no / not any), not nicht.
- keine offizielle Information = no official information
nicht is used more for negating verbs, adjectives (in some contexts), or specific parts of a sentence.
Also note the adjective ending: keine- (no article) → offiziell takes -e: offizielle Information (feminine nominative after keine).
It’s singular: die Information is often used as a mass noun in German (like information in English). So keine Information is very common.
You can say Informationen (plural) when you mean distinct pieces of information, but the singular is idiomatic for the general concept:
- keine Information = no information (in general)
- keine Informationen = no pieces/details of information