English Translation
The keys are in the drawer.
“Die Schlüssel sind in der Schublade” translates to “The keys are in the drawer” in English.
Let’s break down the sentence for someone learning German:
"Die" is a definite article in this sentence, and it's used for the plural form. In German, articles change depending on the gender (masculine, feminine, neuter) and number (singular or plural) of the noun they accompany. "Die" is the plural article for all genders; here, it indicates that we're talking about plural "keys," not just a single key.
"Schlüssel" is the German word for "keys." It's a masculine noun in the plural form. If you were speaking about a single key, you'd say "der Schlüssel."
"Sind" is the verb in the sentence and is the plural present tense form of "sein," which means "to be." Since "keys" is plural, the verb has to be in the plural form to agree with it. If you were talking about a single key, you would use "ist" instead, which is the singular form of "to be."
"In der" is a prepositional phrase. "In" is a preposition meaning "in" or "inside," and "der" is the dative article used here because some prepositions, like "in," require the noun that follows them to be in the dative case when indicating a location.
"Schublade" is a feminine noun meaning "drawer." The dative case is used after certain prepositions or with certain verbs, and it often indicates the location where something is taking place. Here it tells us where the keys are located.
So the sentence structure in German follows the basic subject-verb-object arrangement, and we need to ensure that the articles, nouns, and verbs agree in number and case.