Reading · B2 · Text 18
Tauben
Früher brachte man die Tauben weg von ihrem Zuhause.
In the past, people took pigeons away from their homes.
Dann band man ihnen eine Nachricht an ein Bein.
Then they tied a message to one of their legs.
Die Taube flog dann mit der Nachricht nach Hause.
The pigeon then flew home with the message.
10 words above B2
Grammar in this text
Simple past tense (Präteritum) of strong verbs
Früher brachte man die Tauben weg von ihrem Zuhause.
The text uses the simple past tense (Präteritum) to narrate past events. Strong verbs change their stem vowel in the past tense (e.g., bringen -> brachte, binden -> band, fliegen -> flog).
Use of 'man' as an indefinite pronoun
Dann band man ihnen eine Nachricht an ein Bein.
'man' is used to refer to people in general, similar to 'one' or 'they' in English. It is always singular and takes the verb in the third person singular.
Prepositional phrase with 'an' + accusative for direction
Dann band man ihnen eine Nachricht an ein Bein.
The preposition 'an' is used with the accusative case (ein Bein) to indicate movement or direction toward something. This is a key feature of two-way prepositions (Wechselpräpositionen).
Separable verb 'wegbringen' in a main clause
Früher brachte man die Tauben weg von ihrem Zuhause.
The verb 'wegbringen' is a separable verb. In a main clause, the prefix 'weg' is separated and placed at the end of the sentence, while the conjugated part 'brachte' stays in second position.
Keep going
Text from Tauben — Klexikon, used under CC BY-SA 4.0. See sources.
Translation, glossary and grammar notes are machine-generated and inherit the same licence.