28th July, 2009

The position of “nicht” in a #German sentence

posted 2 years ago

The negation “nicht” is positioned depending on the sentence elements. Let me give you a few rules for that today:

Nicht always follows:

- the conjugated verb

(e.g. Paula raucht nicht. Paula doesn’t smoke.)

- specific adverbs of time

(e.g. Paula arbeitet heute nicht. Paula is not working today.)

Nicht precedes most other elements:

- adjectives

(e.g. Paula ist nicht lustig. Paula isn’t funny.)

- most other adverbs

(e.g. Paula singt nicht gut. Paula doesn’t sing well.)

- infinitives

(e.g. Paula geht nicht schwimmen. Paula is not going swimming.)

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