a bear named Jan

[Ry102]

Hallo!

I think the hardest thing with German (besides memorizing all those noun genders and plural forms) is the word order. I wrote the following sentence but I know it has to be wrong, but I really have no idea how to fix it or really why it is wrong. Any help from you grammarians out there would be greatly appreciated.

Ein Tag, der Bär, dessen Name Jan ist, geht nach dem Hause von seiner Freundin, Katrin.

Please help me reword and explain why the sentence must be set up the way it must be set up.

Vielen Dank!

 

[endefr]

You would never use the nominitive for "one day." For many time expressions, you use the accusative case, but for "one day," I would suggest "eines Tages" (dative case) -- it's basically an idiomatic expression.

I'm not sure about "dem" in your sentence -- it could be right, but I think I would say "geht nach Hause seiner Freundin".

Also, are you sure you want to use the present tense? -- It seems a little awkward to me.

 

[endefr]

Another option:
Instead of "dessen Name Jan ist", you could just write "der Jan heisst".

 

[Ry102]

Thanks! The truth is I haven't really learnt the past tense. I know that usually you use the perfect tense except for "sein" "haben" and some other verbs which usually are written in the simple past (of course this is writting so I can use the simple past mosre often right?), but I haven't learned it yet. I guess I should probably get on that...

Eines Tages, der Bär, dessen Name Jan ist, ist nach Hause seiner Freundin, Katrin, gegangen.

Does that look right? Danke!

 

[endefr]

That works...
If you wanted to use the simple past, it would be:
Eines Tages, der Baer, dessen Name Jan ist (oder: der Jan heisst), ging nach Hause seiner Freundin Katrin.
Of course, "gehen" is irregular.

 

[endefr]

Could you provide the original English sentence?

 

[Carlo66]

Guten Abend,

Eine bessere Uebersetzung waere meiner Meinung nach:

Eines Tages ging ein Baer mit dem Namen Jan zum Haus seiner Freundin Katrin.

(Das Verb sollte eigentlich immer in der zweiten Position sein)

 

[Carlo66]

oops, der bestimmte Artikel ...der Baer... kann natuerlich beibehalten werden; kommt darauf an, was ausgedrueckt werden soll.