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Reading · C1 · Text 29

Jahr

37 words1 min read89% known at C1

Während eines Jahres gibt es vier Jahreszeiten, nämlich Frühling, Sommer, Herbst und Winter.

During a year, there are four seasons, namely spring, summer, autumn, and winter.

Ein bekanntes Lied über das Jahr und seine Jahresuhr hat Rolf Zuckowski geschrieben.

Rolf Zuckowski wrote a well-known song about the year and its year clock.

Damit können kleinere Kinder die Monate von Januar bis Dezember lernen.

This way, younger children can learn the months from January to December.

1 words above C1

Jahresuhr
year clock; a visual representation of the months and seasons of the year, often used for teaching children compound of 'Jahr' (year) and 'Uhr' (clock)

Grammar in this text

Temporal preposition 'während' + Genitive

Während eines Jahres gibt es vier Jahreszeiten

The preposition 'während' (during) takes the genitive case for the noun that follows. Here 'eines Jahres' is the masculine/neuter genitive singular of 'ein Jahr'. This is typical of temporal prepositions in formal German.

Fronting of the accusative object in Perfekt tense

Ein bekanntes Lied über das Jahr und seine Jahresuhr hat Rolf Zuckowski geschrieben.

The sentence starts with the accusative object 'Ein bekanntes Lied...' to emphasize it. The finite verb 'hat' remains in second position, the subject 'Rolf Zuckowski' moves after the verb, and the past participle 'geschrieben' goes to the end, forming the Perfekt tense.

'damit' as a pronominal adverb with inversion

Damit können kleinere Kinder die Monate von Januar bis Dezember lernen.

Here 'damit' is a demonstrative adverb meaning 'with that' (referring to the song). It occupies the first position (Vorfeld) and forces inversion: the finite verb 'können' comes before the subject 'kleinere Kinder'. The infinitive 'lernen' goes to the end. This is different from 'damit' as a subordinating conjunction (which would use verb-final order).

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C1 · Text 28 Grammatik 89% known · 122 words Read C1 · Text 30 Wahl 89% known · 120 words Read Practice C1 reading questions Comprehension and true/false items on texts like this one. Test yourself
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Text from Jahr — Klexikon, used under CC BY-SA 4.0. See sources.

Translation, glossary and grammar notes are machine-generated and inherit the same licence.