Why? Because sometimes verbs consist of multiple parts that appear in different places. This may sound simple but requires a bit more explanation. “Nein, ich esse nicht gerne Pizza.” Rule #3: If there’s a Verb at the End of a Sentence, Nicht Goes Before it provides information how an action is being done, nicht goes first: Whenever there’s a word in your sentence that qualifies the verb, i.e. Last but not least, this rule also applies to modal adverbs. If the preposition appears in position 1 in the sentence we revert to our default setting and nicht moves to the end of the sentence. There is one little exception where this rule doesn’t apply, which may not be that common, but I wanted to mentioned it anyway. “Nein, ich fahre nicht entlang des Flusses.” “Fährst du entlang des Flusses?” (along the river) But they all have one thing in common: when they appear in a sentence nicht goes first. As you may remember, some prepositions in German require the accusative case (durch, bis, für, ohne, entlang, gegen, um, etc.), others the dative case (bei, mit, seit, aus, zu, nach, von, etc.). This is another very simple rule which should be fairly self-explanatory. Rule #2: If there’s a Preposition, Nicht Goes Before It Simple enough, isn’t it? But this rule only comes into play as long as rule 2 or 3 don’t apply. “Kennst du den neuen Film mit Keanu Reeves?” When you’re negating a verb, a noun or a whole sentence using nicht, it generally goes to the end of the sentence. Ready? Los geht’s! Rule #1: By Default, Nicht Goes To The End Of The Sentence So here are 3 very simple rules (and some exceptions) for putting your nicht into the correct position in a sentence. Earlier today for example a question came up on the newsletter about the correct placement of the so-called Negationspartikel nicht in a sentence. It can be helpful to split things up into smaller more manageable bits.
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