{"id":13172,"date":"2021-07-28T19:37:44","date_gmt":"2021-07-28T19:37:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/?p=13172"},"modified":"2021-07-28T19:37:44","modified_gmt":"2021-07-28T19:37:44","slug":"morgen-vs-morgen-in-german","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/morgen-vs-morgen-in-german\/","title":{"rendered":"Morgen vs. morgen in German"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Guten Tag! Something that comes up frequently as a source of confusion for German learners is this: How come in the phrase <strong>Guten Morgen<\/strong>, the word <strong>Morgen<\/strong> (morning) is capitalised, but the word <strong>morgen<\/strong> (tomorrow) on its own is not? Let\u2019s find out.<\/p>\n<p>Simply put, the reason the <em>Morgen<\/em> in <em>Guten Morgen<\/em> is capitalised is because the word <em>Morgen<\/em> is a noun, and all German nouns are capitalised. The word <em>morgen<\/em>, however, is an adverb meaning<em> tomorrow<\/em>. Therefore, it is not capitalised.<\/p>\n<p>Whilst this is pretty straight-forward, there are some grey areas to consider. So let\u2019s look at each word in turn.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Guten Morgen<\/strong> \u2013 The greeting \u2018good morning\u2019. Sometimes shortened to just \u2018Morgen!\u2019<\/li>\n<li><strong>der Morgen<\/strong> \u2013 The morning.<\/li>\n<li><strong>morgen<\/strong> \u2013 The German word for \u2018tomorrow\u2019. An adverb, therefore written in lower-case unless at the start of a sentence.<\/li>\n<li><strong>das Morgen<\/strong> \u2013 A future date; \u2018the tomorrow\u2019. This is used when saying things like, \u2018No one knows what tomorrow will bring\u2019 or \u2018Tomorrow is unwritten\u2019 (<em>\u2018Das Morgen ist ungeschrieben\u2019<\/em>).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div id=\"attachment_13175\" style=\"width: 650px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone post-item__attachment\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-13175\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13175\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2021\/07\/dawid-zawila-G3rw6Y02D0-unsplash.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"427\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2021\/07\/dawid-zawila-G3rw6Y02D0-unsplash.jpg 640w, https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2021\/07\/dawid-zawila-G3rw6Y02D0-unsplash-350x234.jpg 350w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-13175\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo by <a href=\"https:\/\/unsplash.com\/@davealmine?utm_source=unsplash&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_content=creditCopyText\">Dawid Zawi\u0142a<\/a> on <a href=\"https:\/\/unsplash.com\/s\/photos\/morning?utm_source=unsplash&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_content=creditCopyText\">Unsplash<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n<p>Here\u2019s an example of how you\u2019d use the lower-case <em>morgen<\/em>, meaning <em>tomorrow<\/em>:<\/p>\n<p><strong>Wir gehen morgen spazieren \u2013<\/strong> We\u2019re going for a walk tomorrow.<\/p>\n<p>Now, here&#8217;s where it can get confusing! Although the lower-case <strong>morgen<\/strong> means <strong>tomorrow<\/strong>, there is also the lower-case <strong>&#8216;morgens&#8217;<\/strong>, which means<strong> \u2018morning\u2019<\/strong> when used to describe something that generally or frequently happens in the mornings, but isn&#8217;t talking about a <em>specific<\/em> morning. Here is an example:<\/p>\n<p><strong>Wir gehen morgens spazieren<\/strong> \u2013 We (usually) go for a walk in the mornings.<\/p>\n<p>However, if you wanted to say you were going for a walk THIS morning, it would become capitalised, because you are talking about a SPECIFIC morning:<\/p>\n<p><strong>Wir gehen heute Morgen spazieren \u2013<\/strong> We are going for a walk this morning.<br \/>\n(heute Morgen = this morning)<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13176 alignnone\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2021\/07\/vincentiu-solomon-ln5drpv_ImI-unsplash.jpg\" alt=\"morgen\" width=\"640\" height=\"407\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2021\/07\/vincentiu-solomon-ln5drpv_ImI-unsplash.jpg 640w, https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2021\/07\/vincentiu-solomon-ln5drpv_ImI-unsplash-350x223.jpg 350w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>It is worth noting that Morgen is not the only word that gets this treatment; <strong>morgens, mittags, nachmittags, abends <\/strong>&amp;<strong> nachts<\/strong> are all used when describing something that <em>generally or frequently happens<\/em> at those times, rather than on a specific day:<\/p>\n<p><strong>morgens<\/strong> \u2013 in the mornings (der Morgen: morning)<br \/>\n<strong>mittags<\/strong> \u2013 at midday (der Mittag: midday)<br \/>\n<strong>nachmittags<\/strong> \u2013 in the afternoons (der Nachmittag: afternoon)<br \/>\n<strong>abends<\/strong> \u2013 in the evenings (der Abend: evening)<br \/>\n<strong>nachts<\/strong> \u2013 at night (die Nacht: night)<\/p>\n<p>The following sentence uses the lower-case, because it&#8217;s talking about something that frequently happens in the afternoons, but not on any specific day:<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ich gehe nachmittags 20 Minuten spazieren &#8211;<\/strong> I go for a 20-minute walk in the afternoons<\/p>\n<p>This sentence, on the other hand, uses the noun <em>der Nachmittag<\/em> (the afternoon), because it\u2019s talking about a specific afternoon:<\/p>\n<p><strong>Gestern Nachmittag ging ich 20 Minuten spazieren &#8211;<\/strong> I went for a 20-minute walk yesterday afternoon<\/p>\n<p>Here is another example, this time using <em>abends<\/em> (evenings) and <em>der Abend<\/em> (the evening):<\/p>\n<p><b>Ich putze abends meine K\u00fcche <\/b>&#8211; I clean my kitchen in the evenings<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ich werde heute Abend meine K<b>\u00fcche putzen <\/b><\/strong>\u2013 I will clean my kitchen this evening<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_13178\" style=\"width: 650px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone post-item__attachment\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-13178\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13178\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2021\/07\/michael-niessl-KraoHdRYrRE-unsplash.jpg\" alt=\"morgen\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2021\/07\/michael-niessl-KraoHdRYrRE-unsplash.jpg 640w, https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2021\/07\/michael-niessl-KraoHdRYrRE-unsplash-350x197.jpg 350w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-13178\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo by <a href=\"https:\/\/unsplash.com\/@antipodos?utm_source=unsplash&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_content=creditCopyText\">Michael Niessl<\/a> on <a href=\"https:\/\/unsplash.com\/s\/photos\/sunrise?utm_source=unsplash&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_content=creditCopyText\">Unsplash<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n<p>I hope this post has been helpful!<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Points In Time In German\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/points-in-time-in-german\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">If you liked this post, you might like this one: Points in time in German.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Bis bald (see you soon)<br \/>\nConstanze<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<img width=\"350\" height=\"197\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2021\/07\/michael-niessl-KraoHdRYrRE-unsplash-350x197.jpg\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"morgen\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2021\/07\/michael-niessl-KraoHdRYrRE-unsplash-350x197.jpg 350w, https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2021\/07\/michael-niessl-KraoHdRYrRE-unsplash.jpg 640w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 350px) 100vw, 350px\" \/><p>Guten Tag! Something that comes up frequently as a source of confusion for German learners is this: How come in the phrase Guten Morgen, the word Morgen (morning) is capitalised, but the word morgen (tomorrow) on its own is not? Let\u2019s find out. Simply put, the reason the Morgen in Guten Morgen is capitalised is&hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"post-item__readmore\"><a class=\"btn btn--md\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/morgen-vs-morgen-in-german\/\">Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":119,"featured_media":13178,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[12194,95131,376023,551797,3007],"class_list":["post-13172","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-language","tag-adverb","tag-german-language","tag-language","tag-morgen","tag-noun"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/119"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13172"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13172\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13188,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13172\/revisions\/13188"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}