The best German course in Berlin & “Relativsätze”

Sara, 20. Dezember 2019

In my German course today, I learned about the “Relativsatz”, which translates to “the relative clause”. This clause is used to give more information about the noun or the subject in a superordinate clause. In other words, the Relativsatz is a Nebensatz that gives further information about a subject or a noun in a Hauptsätze.

Hauptsätze: ich mag diese Wohnung nicht (I don’t like this apartment)

Nebensatz: meine Möbel haben darin keinen Platz (my furniture has no place there)

The Nebensatz presents further information about the object in the Hauptsätze (diese Wohnung), this in turn can become a Relativsatz.

Here is the Hauptsätze + Nebensatz  as a Relativsatz: Ich mag diese Wohnung, in der meine Möbel keinen Platz haben, nicht.

Ich mag diese Wohnung, in der (der refers to the Wohnung) meine Möbel keinen Platz haben (verb at the end of the relativsatz), nicht.

 

The Relativsatz is a Nebensatz that:

  • Usually comes after the word it is meant to give information on
  • A comma is used to separate the relative clause from the superordinate clause
  • The conjugated verb of the relative clause is moved to the end of the sentence
  • A relative pronoun is used to refer to the noun in the superordinate clause
  • The trick is, that you need to know whether the relative pronoun is in akkusativ, dativ or nominative form and use it accordingly.

If this sounded complicated and you didn’t understand anything, don’t worry, you’ll get there with the best German courses in Berlin.