There are many explanations about the position of “nicht” and they’re okay, but they all fail to see the REAL structure of German.
In my mini series, we’ll take a slightly different approach than usual.
Chances are, you’ll find it a bit weird at first, but once you open up to it, you’ll see that it actually answers a LOT of questions that people have about the position of nicht.
In a nutshell:
- “nicht” comes before what it negates.
- if it is at the end, it just looks like it is, but in reality it comes before the verb
- you need to understand what the main message is to properly negate in German
The position of “nicht” – Part 1