Breakdown of Meine Nachbarin hat mir vorhin den Besen geliehen, damit ich den Flur putzen kann.
Questions & Answers about Meine Nachbarin hat mir vorhin den Besen geliehen, damit ich den Flur putzen kann.
German often uses the Perfekt (present perfect) for past events in everyday speech. Many verbs in Perfekt are formed with:
- haben (auxiliary) in position 2: hat
- the past participle at the end: geliehen
So hat … geliehen = “(she) lent”.
In German main clauses, the finite verb (here: hat) goes in second position, and non-finite verb parts (like participles or infinitives) typically go to the end of the clause. That’s why you get:
- Meine Nachbarin hat … geliehen.
With leihen (to lend), German commonly uses:
- Dative for the person receiving the item: mir = “to me”
- Accusative for the thing being lent: den Besen = “the broom”
So: jemand leiht jemandem etwas (someone lends someone something).
Because den Besen is the direct object of leihen, and masculine nouns change their article in the accusative:
- nominative: der Besen
- accusative: den Besen
vorhin means “earlier (a short while ago)”—typically today or recently. It’s a time adverb and can appear in different positions, but it often comes in the “middle field” (after the verb / after pronouns depending on emphasis). Here it’s placed naturally after mir:
- … hat mir vorhin den Besen geliehen …
You could also say (with different focus):
- Vorhin hat meine Nachbarin mir den Besen geliehen.
damit introduces a purpose clause: “so that / in order that”.
- She lent the broom so that I can clean the hallway.
weil would introduce a reason: “because”. That would change the meaning (it would explain why she lent it, not the intended purpose).
A clause starting with damit is a subordinate clause. In German subordinate clauses, the finite verb goes at the end. Here the finite verb is kann (not putzen), because kann is the conjugated modal.
So you get:
- … damit ich den Flur putzen kann.
With a modal verb (like können), German uses an infinitive construction:
- infinitive at the end: putzen
- conjugated modal at the very end of the clause in subordinate clauses: kann
In a main clause, it would be:
- Ich kann den Flur putzen. (modal in position 2)
In this context it’s usually practical ability/possibility: she lent the broom so that I’m able to clean. Depending on the situation, it can also imply “so that I’m allowed to,” but with a broom it most naturally reads as “so that I can (do it).”
Because den Flur is the direct object of putzen: you clean something.
- den Flur putzen = “clean the hallway”
im Flur (“in the hallway”) would describe location, not the object being cleaned, and would sound like you’re doing cleaning activity while located there, not necessarily cleaning the hallway itself.
Yes, but the noun and possessive ending must match gender:
- female neighbor: Meine Nachbarin (feminine)
- male neighbor: Mein Nachbar (masculine)
Everything else can stay the same:
- Mein Nachbar hat mir vorhin den Besen geliehen, damit ich den Flur putzen kann.
The subject inside the damit-clause is ich, so I am the one who will clean:
- … so that I can clean the hallway.
Even though the first clause subject is Meine Nachbarin, the subordinate clause clearly switches the subject to ich.
Yes, if the subject is the same in both clauses. But here the subjects differ:
- main clause: Meine Nachbarin
- purpose clause: ich
um … zu generally requires the same subject, so damit is the correct choice here.
If I were the one lending/doing the purpose, um … zu might work, e.g.:
- Ich habe mir einen Besen geliehen, um den Flur zu putzen.
Besen is masculine and belongs to a group of nouns that often look the same across cases in the singular (except for the article), so you see:
- der Besen (nom)
- den Besen (acc)
- dem Besen (dat)
It’s not one of the typical “weak nouns” that add -n/-en (like der Junge → den Jungen). Besen already ends in -en, but it’s not declining by adding an extra -n here; the case is shown mainly by the article.