Transcript Slide 1
(Where are you traveling to?) “wo” vs. “wohin” “wo” is a question word that means “where” that is used to ask the location “wohin” is a question word that means “where to” and is used to express direction towards a place The prepositions “nach”, “in”, “an”, and “auf” can be used to mean “to a place”. Two-way prepositions “an”, “auf”, and “in” are three examples of two-way prepositions. This means that they take the dative case to indicate “location” and the accusative case to indicate “movement”. When using the question word “wohin”, you are implying movement from one place to another. Therefore, the objects of the prepositions “an, auf, in” are going to be in the accusative case. “nach” • The preposition “nach” is used to indicate going to a country, city, state, or island that is not proceeded by an article (die, der, das, etc) Countries with no article Wohin fährt Petra? Sie fährt nach Deutschland Cities Wohin fährst du? Ich fahre nach Bremen Islands Wohin fahren John und Susanna? Sie fahren nach Rügen. “in” • The preposition “in” is used to indicate going to a country or geographic area that is feminine or plural. The article for the countries is in the accusative case since the accusative is used to indicate motion. Plural Countries Feminine Countries Das Land Country die Schweiz Switzer-land die Türkei Turkey die Tschechische Republik Czech Republic Das Land Country die USA die Vereinigten Staaten USA United States die Niederlande Netherlands Feminine Countries Wohin fährt Sabine? Sie fährt in die Schweiz (f) Feminine Countries Wohin fahren Elke und Markus? Sie fahren in die Tschechische Republik (f). Plural Countries Wohin fährt John? Er fährt in die USA (pl). Using “in” with geographic areas • Examples: (Beispiele) Ich fahre in die Berge (I travel to the mountains) Ich fahre in die Alpen (I travel to the alps) Ich fahre in den (accusative) Schwarzwald (m) “an” • The preposition “an” is used to indicate going to a body of water. The articles are in the accusative case to indicate motion to the body of water. • Examples: Ich fahre an die Ostsee. (I drive to the Baltic sea) Ich fahre an den Bodensee. (I drive to Lake Constance) Ich fahre an die Donau. ( I drive to the Danube river) “auf” • The preposition “auf” refers to going to heights. • Examples: – Ich klettere* auf einen Baum. ( I climb a tree)