Mein Gürtel sitzt heute locker, und mein Daumen ist nach der Übung schon fast wieder normal.

In German, sitzen is often used more broadly than English to sit. It can describe how something fits, rests, or sits on the body.

So Mein Gürtel sitzt heute locker means something like:

• My belt is fitting loosely today
• My belt sits loosely today

This is a very natural German way to talk about clothing and accessories. You will also hear similar uses such as:

• Das Hemd sitzt gut. = The shirt fits well.
• Die Brille sitzt locker. = The glasses are loose.

So here, sitzt is about fit/position, not about physically sitting down.

Because locker here is not directly in front of a noun. It is being used as a predicate adjective, after the verb sitzen.

Compare:

• ein lockerer Gürtel = a loose belt
  
  • adjective before a noun, so it takes an ending
• Der Gürtel sitzt locker. = The belt fits loosely / is loose.
  
  • adjective after the verb, so it has no ending

This is very common in German:

• Das ist gut.
• Sie ist müde.
• Die Schuhe sitzen eng.

So locker stays in its basic form here.

German word order is flexible, but the conjugated verb must stay in second position in a normal main clause.

Here the structure is:

• Mein Gürtel = subject
• sitzt = verb
• heute = time expression
• locker = description of how it fits

So the sentence is perfectly natural as:

• Mein Gürtel sitzt heute locker.

You could also say:

• Heute sitzt mein Gürtel locker.

That version puts more emphasis on today. Both are correct.

German usually repeats the possessive if it belongs to each noun separately and clearly.

So:

• Mein Gürtel ... und mein Daumen ...

sounds normal and clear.

If you removed the second mein, you would get:

• Mein Gürtel ... und Daumen ...

which is not natural here.

German can sometimes avoid repeating articles or possessives in certain coordinated structures, but in this sentence, repeating mein is the standard and most natural choice.

Nach is a preposition that here means after, and it takes the dative case.

So:

• die Übung = nominative
• nach der Übung = dative after nach

That is why it is der, not die.

More examples:

• nach dem Essen = after the meal
• nach der Arbeit = after work
• nach dem Training = after the training session

So nach der Übung simply means after the exercise / after practice.

Ist ... normal is a straightforward way to say that something is back to normal or seems normal again.

So:

• mein Daumen ist ... wieder normal

means the thumb is nearly normal again.

German could also use other expressions, for example:

• Mein Daumen fühlt sich wieder normal an.
  = My thumb feels normal again.
• Mein Daumen ist wieder in Ordnung.
  = My thumb is okay again.

But ist wieder normal is completely natural if the speaker is describing the condition of the thumb more generally.

This combination adds nuance:

• schon = already
• fast = almost
• wieder = again

Together, schon fast wieder normal means:

• already almost normal again

It suggests improvement that has happened sooner than expected or is noticeably underway.

The order feels natural in German because the speaker is building the idea step by step:

1. wieder normal = normal again
2. fast wieder normal = almost normal again
3. schon fast wieder normal = already almost normal again

So the sentence gives a sense of recovery in progress.

For the same reason as locker: it is a predicate adjective, used after the verb sein.

• mein Daumen ist normal
• mein Daumen ist wieder normal

When adjectives come after verbs like sein, werden, or bleiben, they do not take adjective endings.

Compare:

• ein normaler Daumen = a normal thumb
• Der Daumen ist normal. = The thumb is normal.

Both are in the nominative case, because each one is the subject of its clause.

Clause 1:

• Mein Gürtel = subject
• sitzt = verb

Clause 2:

• mein Daumen = subject
• ist = verb

So the sentence contains two main clauses joined by und, and each clause has its own nominative subject.

Because the sentence joins two independent main clauses:

1. Mein Gürtel sitzt heute locker
2. mein Daumen ist nach der Übung schon fast wieder normal

In German, a comma before und is often optional when joining main clauses, but it is very common when the clauses are longer or clearly separate ideas. Here the comma helps readability.

So this punctuation is natural and correct.

Yes, depending on how you translate the whole phrase.

German locker here is an adjective, but English may express the idea in different ways:

• My belt is loose today.
• My belt fits loosely today.
• My belt is sitting loose today.

So while locker is grammatically an adjective in German, the best English translation may use either loose or loosely, depending on the sentence structure.

It can mean several related things, depending on context:

• exercise
• practice
• drill
• sometimes workout exercise

In this sentence, nach der Übung could mean:

• after the exercise
• after practice
• after the drill

If the meaning has already been given to the learner, then the important grammar point is that Übung is a feminine noun:

• die Übung
• nach der Übung in the dative after nach

Yes. That is also possible, but it means something slightly different in form.

• nach der Übung = after the exercise / after the practice session
  
  • uses the noun die Übung
• nach dem Üben = after practicing
  
  • uses the verbal noun das Üben

Both can work, but nach der Übung sounds a bit more like referring to a specific exercise or session, while nach dem Üben focuses more on the activity itself.