I was lying down all morning in German 🇩🇪

Sentence info.

"Ich habe mich den ganzen Morgen hingelegt" is formed in the Perfekt (present perfect) tense, which is commonly used in spoken German to describe past actions. Here’s the breakdown:

• “Ich” is the subject (“I”).
• “habe” is the auxiliary verb (from “haben”) used to form the Perfekt.
• “mich” is the reflexive pronoun required by the reflexive verb “sich hinlegen” (to lie down).
• “den ganzen Morgen” indicates the time span during which the action took place. Note that “Morgen” is a masculine noun in the accusative case (after “den”), and “ganzen” agrees with it in gender, case, and number.
• “hingelegt” is the past participle of “sich hinlegen.” The separable prefix “hin” attaches to the beginning of the verb in its infinitive form, and in the participle it comes as part of “hingelegt.”

To remember this structure, note that reflexive verbs always require the correct reflexive pronoun (mich, dich, sich, etc.), and in the Perfekt the auxiliary “haben” is used along with the appropriate past participle. Also, when indicating a duration like “den ganzen Morgen,” keep in mind the correct case for time expressions and the adjective ending that matches the noun.

Alternate ways to say “I was lying down all morning” include:

• “Ich lag den ganzen Morgen.” (Simple past form)
• “Ich habe mich über den ganzen Morgen hingelegt.” (A slight variation by inserting “über” to emphasize the duration.)

Each alternative conveys the idea of spending the whole morning lying down, but using either the simple past (Präteritum) or a slight modification in the Perfekt.

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