Hello everyone,
and welcome to the second part of our look at the basics of
German Sentence Structure
And because that sounds very boring and dry, we’ll from now on call it
“The Tao of Sen”
In the first part (find it here), we took a brief look at sentences in general and then focused on the struct… I mean Tao of main sentences.
Here it is again:
German Main Sentence – Structure Chart
We then talked about the “verb second” and that’s where we left off.
Today, we’ll explore the other important positions, namely the first position and the end of the sentence.
And in part three, in the extra long season finale, we’ll then finally talk about side sentences, see what they are, learn a really intuitive hack why their structure makes sense AND we’ll find out one of the deepest, mind-bendingest and most surprising insights about the German language (and that you already know if you’re a long time reader ;)).
So yeah… the last episode is top notch. But the one of today isn’t bad either. You know… one of those bori... I mean slow mid-season episodes.
By the way, I desperately need series recommendations for the coming winter, so if you have suggestions, leave them in the comments.
But now, are you ready to jump back into the “Tao of Sen“?
Then let’s go.
As I said, we’ll talk about the beginning and the end of a sentence today, and of course we’ll begin with the beginning.
The First Element of a German sentence – “The Tao of One”
In the last episode, we learned that the verb in a German main sentence always sits in the second position. That means there is exactly ONE open slot in front of it.
That’s very different to English where you can pile up three elements in front of the verb without problems.
- Yesterday (1) , because it was really boring (2) I (3) fell (4) asleep in class.
That does NOT work in German.
In German, it’s only ONE element.
This raises two questions and the first one is which elements we can put there.
And the answer is pretty simple: virtually all elements.
I mean, not all at once, of course. Just one at a time. But we can out virtually any element into the first position.
Take this sentence.
- I have had a beer today.
On first sight, we have the three elements subject (I), direct object (a beer) and time (today).
And they all can technically go into position one.
- Ich habe heute ein Bier getrunken. (subject)
- Heute habe ich ein Bier getrunken. (time)
- Ein Bier habeich heute getrunken. (direct object)
The last one might already be kind of a surprise to you but it doesn’t stop there. By all elements I really mean all of them.
Also the leftover part of the verb can be in position one.
- Getrunken habe ich heute ein Bier.
Yes, that is proper German and people say that. And technically, even a lonely prefix could be in position one.
- Raus gehe ich nicht, Luke.
- Outside I go not, Luke.
Proud Yoda would be.
Now, a sentence like the one above does sound a bit strange in German as well, and it only works in the right context.
Which brings us to the second big question we can ask about position one, which is “Why and when do native speakers put a certain element in position one.”
Or put more simply
“What happens if we put an element in position one?”
When you look around for an answer in online courses or textbooks you’ll often find something like this:
“Putting an element into position gives it emphasis.”
But that’s not quite what’s going on.
Take the following sentence:
- Thomas has seen a unicorn.
By default, the focus is on unicorn, because that’s the news. But let’s suppose we want to put the focus on Thomas.
In writing, we could use all caps, for instance…
- THOMAS has seen a unicorn.
… and if we were to read that, we’d probably use a louder voice for Thomas.
But what really creates the emphasis is not the all caps or the louder voice. It’s the fact that these are a deviation from the norm.
All caps can only create emphasis because they’re not the norm and saying “Thomas” with a loud voice ONLY creates emphasis because we usually wouldn’t say it that way.
You might have an inkling where I am going with this :).
It’s the exact same for structure.
Putting an element in position one CAN give it special emphasis, but ONLY if it usually ISN’T in position one.
- Ich mache die Tür zu.
- Zu mache ich die Tür.
The ich in the first one doesn’t get special emphasis because position one is a natural spot for it. The prefix zu of the separable verb zumachen (to close) on the other hand will get an incredible amount of emphasis… billions and billions of emphasis. So much emphasis, it almost sounds wrong. Because its natural spot is AT THE END, not at the beginning.Now, all this of course raises the question of which elements would naturally come in the beginning.
The real answer to that is actually the key to German word order and it’s a little too big a topic for today, so we’ll talk about it in a separate series.
Want a quick teaser trailer?
Well…
“Think of a sentence as a movie scene.”
That’s all I’m gonna say for now ;).
For today, let’s use a quick dirty hack that’ll work for about 80% of everyday spoken sentences. The elements that sound very natural early on and hence in position one are the who-box (subject)..
- Ich habe gestern Pasta gegessen.
- I ate pasta yesterday.
… the when-box ( time information) …
- Gestern habe ich Pasta gegessen.
- Yesterday, I ate pasta.
and all referential elements that directly tie the sentence to what has come before, be it a word like there or a phrase like for that reason….
- Das ist mein Lieblingsrestaurant. Dort habe ich gestern Pasta gegessen.
- That’s my favorite restaurant. I ate pasta there, yesterday.
- Ich hatte Hunger. Deshalb habe ich eine Pizza gegessen.
- I was hungry. That’s why I ate a pizza.
Actually, if there is such a “connector” it’s most natural to start with that. Especially if you’re telling a story, it just makes for a nice narrative flow.
- Gestern bin ich mit Maria ins Kino gegangen.
Dort haben wir einen Film geguckt.
Danach hatte Maria Hunger.
Deshalb sind wir ins Restaurant gegeangen.
Ich habe Pizza gegessen und Maria hatte Fledermaussuppe.
Der Rest ist 2020. - Yesterday, I went to the cinema with Maria.
We watched a movie there.
After that, Maria was hungry.
That’s why we went to a restaurant.
I ate pizza and Maria had bat soup.
The rest is 2020.
Oh…uh… that example took a weird turn.
But anyway, subject, time and references… that’s a good rule of thumb for what naturally goes into position one without creating any special focus.
Now, besides creating (or not creating) emphasis, there’s another reason why something might be put into position one. It’s not that important in daily speech, but it definitely matters when you start writing, so I want to mention it real quick.
And that reason is balance.
We’ve learned in the first part, that an element like for instance time information can be just one word like “today”, but it can also be a full side sentence.
- Weil mein Chef krank ist, muss ich diese Woche mehr arbeiten, obwohl ich gar keinen Job habe.
- Because my boss is sick, I have to work more this week although I don’t have a job.
That makes no sense, but many things don’t this year, so let’s just ride with it. What matters is the structure. We have a why-box in the beginning and a “despite what”-box at the end, each containg a full side sentence.
And by putting one in the beginning, we get a nicely balanced structure:
[Weil__________,] muss———(main sentence)————-,[ ________habe].
The alternatives would be to either splice the weil-box in between or add it at the end.
———, [weil_______ ], ———, [_______ ]. // —————-, [ ________ ] , [ ________ ] .
And neither is a nice balance.
As I said… this is more relevant for written German, but still I wanted to mention it.
Cool.
So now that we know about the beginning of a sentence, let’s pack up and move all the way to the other side.
But first, it’s time for you to get active and recap with a little quiz
And now, let’s take a look at the end of a sentence.
The End of a German Sentence – The Tao of End
And of course that means that we’ll talk about Vate™ – Verb at the End. One of German’s most famous features besides Der,Die,Das™ and Die Fälle™.
And I’m sure most of you are already fairly familiar with Vate™. In the Essentials-module of this course, we’ve actually started dealing with Vate™ pretty much from the second or third lecture because it’s just such an integral part of the language.
If the verb has just one part, it goes into the second position. But as soon as we have two parts the part that carries the ending goes into slot 2, and the rest goes to the end.
And that can be a prefix…
- Ich mache das Licht aus. (prefix)
- I turn the light off.
or a second verb...
- Ich will heute abend in die Sauna gehen.
- I want to go to sauna this evening.
or a ge-form…
- Thomas hat gestern bis um 12 geschlafen.
- Thomas slept till 12 yesterday.
or the Z-Beta-3- Goethe-Gödel Configuration that we talked about last time. You probably don’t remember it though… the grammar of that is quite traumatizing, and most brains repress it.
Here’s an ex… uh… I… uhm… wait, what were we talking about?
Oh yeah, verb at the end.
I don’t actually want to spend much time with practical examples today because you’ll see Vate pretty much all the time anyway and if you’ve followed the course, then you should be at least past the first two stages of grief – denial (“What kind of crap is that. It can’t be.”) and panic (“OMG, I can’t do that!!“).
And I also don’t want to talk about the big question of WHY German does that.
There actually IS an answer to that, but we’ll save that for the final part of this series. Because … you know… tension.
Today, I’d rather talk about a few things that sooner or later come up as questions and that we could call exceptions… if there weren’t so many of them.
The Verb is Last in a German Sentence – Or is it?!
Yes, you read that right. There are actually plenty of instances where the verb doesn’t “go to the end”.
The first one is side sentences.
Content-wise, a side sentence is just a piece of information for the story of the main sentence, one box that answers a specific question.
The side sentence “when my alarm rings” has the exact same function as the words “at 9” – it tells us when I get up.
- [Wenn der Wecker klingelt], wache ich auf.
When the alarm rings, I wake up. - [Um neun] wache ich auf.
At nine, I wake up.
Structurally, however, a box with a side sentence is a bit different than a box with just a word.
Let’s take the same example and start with ich this time.
- Ich wache [um 9] auf…. GOOD!
- Ich wache auf [um 9].… WRONG!
This is in line with what we’ve learned.
But for the version with a side sentence, it’s different.
- Ich wache, [wenn der Wecker klingelt], auf. .. okay
- Ich wache auf, [wenn der Wecker klingelt]… okay
Here, BOTH versions are grammatically correct and the second one is probably a bit better. And the reason is… simplicity.
Yes, I just said German does something because of simplicity.
Here’s the structure of the examples we just had:
- ————-, __________ ,–.
- ——————–, ________.
The second version is clearly simpler and even though the sentence is quite short, the dangling prefix right after the verb “klingelt” of the side sentence makes the brain work a little harder.
Here’s a longer example:
- Thomas hasn’t talked with Maria for three days, because she laughed at his new hair.
- Thomas hat seit drei Tagen nicht mit Maria geredet, [weil sie über seine neue Frisur gelacht hat].
- Thomas hat,[weil sie über seine neue Frisur gelacht hat], seit drei Tagen nicht mit Maria geredet.
and as structures…
- —————-, _________ .
- —-, _________ , ———–.
Again, BOTH versions are correct. And a hundred years ago, writers would probably have preferred the second one, because making sentences as complicated as possible was fashionable back then. But not anymore. The current fashion is to “compartmentalize” and put more and more stuff after the verb at the end.
Side sentences are the most obvious choice because they’re complex units and they themselves have a verb at the end, so the overall construct still has a verb at the end. I mean… German LOVES that stuff, make no mistake. Verb final for life, bro.
- Ich habe eine Suppe gegessen, weil ich Hunger hatte.
- Ich habe, weil ich Hunger hatte, eine Suppe gegessen.
But it doesn’t stop there. Also constructions with zu or um zu are often put after the final verb.
- I tried to call you three times.
- Ich habe drei mal versucht, dich anzurufen…. GREAT
- Ich habe drei mal dich anzurufen versucht.… Meeeehhhhh
- Thomas opens the fridge to take a beer for himself.
- Thomas macht den Kühlschrank auf, um sich ein Bier zu nehmen…. YUP
- Thomas macht, um sich ein Bier zu nehmen, den Kühlschrank auf…. NOPE
The second version of either example is not really wrong… but they sound overly complicated and no one really talks or writes that way.
And while these zu-constructs still have their own verb, it still doesn’t stop there.
Because also comparisons can be put after the final verb.
- Thomas sieht mit seiner neuen Frisur aus, wie Billie Eilish.
- Thomas sieht mit seiner neuen Frisur wie Billie Eilish aus.
- Thomas looks like Billie Eilish with his new hair.
- Ich habe hier mehr gelernt als im Deutschkurs.
- Ich habe hier mehr als im Deutschkurs gelernt.
- I learned more here than in German class.
In these examples, both versions are equally idiomatic and common but the longer the comparison-part gets, the better it is after the verb.
For more details on that, you can check out the article on comparisons.
But yeah… side sentences, zu-constructions and comparisons … all those can commonly come after the final verb. And these cases are so common, that it would be weird to call them exceptions.
So I think we need to say it as it is… this whole Vate™-thing isn’t quite as universal as it sounds in beginner courses and learning material; including my own, by the way. I think it makes sense to present the simplified rule in the beginning, because mentioning all these “exceptions” would be overwhelming and also because the Vate™ is an expression of a fundamental feature of German that we need to get used to.
But I also think it’s important to tell learners early on, that it’s not that fixed.
And just to make sure… that’s NOT just colloquial German. This does apply to written German as well.
In spoken German, this goes much further, actually, because there, people also put prepositional phrases after the final verb, and sometimes even usually well integrated elements like time.
- Maria hat sich gefreut auf den Film.
- Maria was excited for the movie.
- Ich habe mit Maria gesprochen gestern…
- I talked to Maria yesterday….
Sentences like these are quite common in spoken German, and at least for me I can say… it’s not even just a glitch. Like, sometimes it just happens because my brain was too slow and decided to have an afterthought. But at other times I legit prefer this flow.
But if you now go like “Yeah, I’m totally gonna do that.” let me tell you… nope. Because first of all, if you do this and you have an accent, people might assume you made a mistake and correct you rather than applaud you for being super native…. yeah, not fair, I know.
And also, like with any street language, there are dos and dont’s, written by “what sounds right.”
To take the example again…
- Ich habe mit Maria gesprochen gestern.
- Ich habe gestern gesprochen mit Maria.
No native speaker would ever say the second version, unless they’re REALLY confused.
It’s actually virtually impossible for you to know which element might work in the bonus field, because it depends on the context. So… if you hear people do something like this, then don’t get confused.
But for your active speaking, stick to the three types of elements for which it’s universally custom:
- side sentences
- zu-constructions
- comparisons
And that’s also what we’ll practice in the second exercise for this lecture.
But first let me wrap this up, because we’re actually done for the day.
This was our look at the first and the last position in a main sentence. Next time, in the grand finale, we’ll finally talk about side sentence, and the big reveal that I keep hinting at.
For now, if you have any questions about what we’ve learned so far, just leave me a comment and I’ll do my best to clear it up.
I hope you had fun today, have a great week and enjoy the exercise and I’ll see you next time.
further reading:
My reading as of now in german it’s quite good (around C1 without that much trouble), but when I write/speak… my grammar is all over the place.
Some of the rules you mentioned here do indeed seem quite helpful to internalise better some things without being “hardcore” grammar terms…
From you basically mentioning at position 1: subject/time/referential elements/connectors, you made me to realize: instead of attempting to memorize WHICH “keywords” do trigger an inversion, it’s easier to have them like these groups. Specially with the referential, because there might be cases that dunno, there’s one you haven’t seen or just don’t remember it and if it triggers inversion or not. But, just by thinking: does it refer to anything? It actually makes it way easier! THANKS!
And from that same thought, you made me think: what about all of these special elements that trigger Veta? That ja, some is already easy to remember because of frequency (weil, wenn). Others as W-Frage because they already are a group. But for the rest? You just made me think I can from now on call them “dramatizers”, because when they appear they might “create” this sense of drama, you are always missing something. I know there’s a grammar term, but… meh. This way is funnier and hence easier xd.
Anyway, thanks!
The grammar term is subordinating conjunctions, or Subjunktion in German.
I actually have an article about what they are and what they do.
https://yourdailygerman.com/subordinating-conjunctions-explanation/
But dramatizers is nice too :).
Some thoughts on inversion, since you brought it up… inversion is not a thing in a German mind or a German grammar book. It’s made up by the teacho-industrial complex and I personally hate it, because it makes it seem that German structure is a variation of English structure, when in fact it’s absolutely not the same.
For us, there is no inversion, there is just empty slots that we fill based on vibes or what we want to stress.
– _______ verb________ _________ __________ rest of verb (afterthoughts).
And sometimes, we want ALL elements to move behind the verb. Then, we have to fill slot 1 and we’ll do that with “es”.
– Es leben hier keine Tiere.
If you think in “inversions” you’d have es as a trigger word, but then in your framing, what does it refer to? It refers to nothing. It’s just an empty placeholder that we put there because we want everything that matters late.
Also, some sentences don’t have a subject.
– Hier wird oft bis morgens getrunken.
Again, thinking in terms of inversion will completely fail here.
Inversion is more of an “action plan” that reminds you to put the verb second, but it’s not actual grammar.
You’re free to see it as such of course, but I don’t use the concept personally for anything.
To get use to “inversion”, focus on rhythm of sentences like “Heute hab’ ich…”, “morgen geh ich” and so on.
Write out a bunch of them and say them out loud. It’s the flow that’ll make you learn it, not the thought.
Welp, I must admit that when I posted my previous comment, I had only just started the series. By now I’ve gone through Part 1, Part 2, and all three parts of the word-order series and… DAMN!
I completely agree. It makes so much more sense when I start to “feel” or think in terms of a movie, scenery, transitions, and “boxes,” instead of trying to apply an “if WORD_X, then trigger inversion” kind of mindset.
The moment I stop focusing on whether specific words belong to category X or Y, things start to feel much more intuitive. I guess it doesn’t feel THAT strange because I get a LOT of passive input. Besides reading a lot, I play games, listen to podcasts, and watch movies and series in German. I’ve also been living in Germany for three years now. So I must have been somewhat familiar with these patterns all along, just completely unconsciously.
I’ll definitely check out the additional post you linked. It might come in handy as well. I was actually going through the articles about “nicht” and taking some notes.
And I really, really wonder: WHY THE HELL do courses, textbooks, and pretty much every other resource insist so much on rules, when this kind of approach feels so much more natural?
The only thing I’m missing now, I think, is what you mentioned: writing sentences and actively using the language so that this way of thinking becomes natural. Basically, moving from consciously applying it while producing German to having it become an automatic, almost reflexive process.
Nevertheless, might I ask something else? Obviously, I still haven’t opened the post you linked, but do you happen to have any posts (or advice) about similar elements? About when to use different connectors and how to develop a feel for them?
For example, I’ve stumbled more than a couple of times across words like “infolgedessen”, “demzufolge”, “gleichwohl”, “demgegenüber”, “jedoch”, “ferner”, “indem”, etc. But when I speak or write, even though I know them passively, it never occurs to me to use them. I always end up relying on things like “weil”, “wenn”, “da”, and “aber” most of the time. With some of them, I keep mixing them up, as is the case with “trotz”, “trotzdem”, “obwohl”, and “allerdings”.
Thanks in advance, and thanks for explaining it in such a simple way. It was genuinely eye-opening. Given that my native language is Spanish and my second language is English, this difference in how German structures things feels like a game changer.
Happy to hear that it helps and that you made it through the word order series even though it’s currently fractured because part 1 got a do-over that the other parts are yet to get.
I have another post you’ll probably enjoy. A sneak peek for the book I’m working on:
https://yourdailygerman.com/my-coming-book-sample-chapter-2/
It’s about head final, so maybe a nice confirmation of what was already scattered out over the other posts.
Why do most courses and textbooks not teach this?
Because they’re stupid, that’s why. They’re stuck 30 years ago and keep just copy pasting from one another.
The big fat Duden Grammar book for Germans (1500 pages) used to be shit too, but in 2006 or so, they revised it and included more recent linguistic analysis that isn’t as beholden to the classical Latin frame anymore and it’s MUCH better but textbooks are mostly reruns of older books and the youtubers just look online anyway.
Conversation is slowly starting to shift on Reddit, so maybe in 10 years this is finally the general gospel.
For example, I’ve stumbled more than a couple of times across words like “infolgedessen”, “demzufolge”, “gleichwohl”, “demgegenüber”, “jedoch”, “ferner”, “indem”, etc. But when I speak or write, even though I know them passively, it never occurs to me to use them.
I don’t have a dedicated article for those because that would just kind of be a list and I’m trying to have all my articles have an arc and a narrative. I do have them in my dictionary though.
But don’t worry about not using them. I don’t use them either.
These things are things you start using automatically once you have seen them often enough. If you read texts or listen to German that has them, and you understand what it means, then you will start building a sense of the “color” of this type of language. It’ll have a “feel”. And then, when you’e in a situation where this “feel” feels right, the words will come.
Like… you wouldn’t think of adding vinegar when eating a cake, but you would when eating a salad.
What I mean is… you’ll start using them when you’re ready. It’s okay to use them in writing practice but don’t try to force them into conversation. Let them happen.
Sticking with the basic words is fine.
I have a sort of opinion piece about that too, if you want to read a little rant:
https://yourdailygerman.com/using-synonyms-german/
As for trotz, trotzdem and obwohl.
despite (trotz)
despite THAT (trotzdem)
although (obwohl)
No reason to get them confused, except due to overthinking or second guessing yourself into confusion.
Als Deutschlerherin erkläre ich meinen SchülerInnen längere Sätze so: jedes Verb hat seinen eigenen “Garten,” und die Satzzeichen sind die Zäune. Das heißt, ein Verb, das ans “Ende” geschickt wird, kann nur bis das nächste Satzzeichen gehen, und da muss es anhalten. Das ist sehr wichtig, finde ich, mit “zu-” Nebensätze. Wenn es kein Satzzeichen gibt, dann können Elemente manchmal umgeschoben werden, wie zum Beispiel mit Vergleichen. Diese Idee ist ziemlich klar und funktioniert, für meine Zwecke zumindest, so gut wie immer.
Das ist ein ziemlich schönes Bild! Hat auch was von deutscher Kultur drin, denn wir sind “Zaunland”.
Daran hatte ich nicht gedacht, aber du hast Recht! *grins*
Is there a follow up article to this? There is no next button.read another comment… nvm.
Hallo! In the given example
– “Ich habe hier mehr als im Deutschkurs gelernt.”
isn’t a comma missing before “als”?
No, what makes you think that?
OMG, the tao of German sentences… I’m going to be thinking about that all week, seriously, it’s so much more intelligent to think of the flow of energy through sentences than these stressful top-down models of grammar and sentence structure.
I believe there’s a quirk in the sequence – clicking “previous lesson” here links here: https://yourdailygerman.com/german-sentence-structure-2/ – but on THAT page, clicking “next lesson” links to the weltberühmte Box method page.
Also there doesn’t seem to be a link to this page in the “sentence structure” section of the grammar course. And my eager search bar searches were fruitless – had to click the link in the PDF to get here.
Which means this is a hidden page that only reveals itself to the worthy but I also think a button at the end of the sentence structure section would suit it :)
Oh, thanks a lot for the heads-up :)
The previous-next buttons in the grammar section are some of the worst bits of the site at the moment because nothing is automatic and I have to change everything if I publish a new lecture on a topic. That’s what happened here and I think I just got confused during updating.
I’ll have to find a better way to do this eventually :)
Yeah I keep getting an inkling about wanting to ~help~ with organizing the grammar course after the pdf odyssey is complete. We’ll see about that. I have a super strong fix-it instinct for stuff that’s in front of my face, whose creation I had nothing to do with. But also it’s hard to see how I could be more helpful than in-the-way in that situation. I guess I’ll let you know if I get an epiphany lol.
BTW, I tested into the HIGHEST LEVEL of the sprachkurs I’m about to start — I couldn’t believe it! I really thought I’d be like B1 or so. It’s thanks to this blog I guess, you and the Easy German kiddos.
Much appreciate the offer :). I have a bit much on my plate right now, but I might well get back to it at some point!!
And congrats on crushing the placement test. That’s awesome!
Which one of the following has an unusual emphasis on the first element?
(“That’s why, I ate yogurt.“)
Deshalb habe ich Jogurt gegessen. I asked a my austrian friend and he said that Deshalb habe ich Jogurt gegessen is corrcet, but When I took the quiz your answer said it was wrong. May I know why
The question is which one has an unusual emphasis.
There is nothing unusual about “deshalb habe ich…”. It’s just normal.
Ask your friend again and give them the example with “Jogurt” in the beginning for comparison. That’s the one that has UNUSUAL emphasis.
Does that help?
can we also say ” dort haben wir einem Film gesehen”
“einen Film”, but yes. This is absolutely idiomatic.
I’m having trouble finding part 3. Can you link to it here? Thanks, and great articles all!
I have yet to write that actually. However, the big reveal that I promised is kind of revealed in the article about “nicht” :)
ich bin vierzehn jahre alt
Super! Dann bist du mit 17 fließend in Deutsch!
This article is super cool and when I was rating a 5 I touched my phone twice and it made the rating 4.8 .But the true is it should be a tolle 5!! Vielen dank!!
I think that’s just the average of all votes :).
Thanks a lot and glad you enjoyed this one.
(oh and please keep rating… way too few people rate here)
Hi again, came here from the vor/bevor article; still a bit lost with zu-constructions. From that article we had: “Ich will einen Espresso trinken, bevor ich wieder anfange zu arbeiten.” So, it’s clear we have a nebensatz, the bevor pushes anfange towards the end, but the ‘zu arbeiten’ gets pushed right past it. But this sounds right to me too: Ich muss reicher werden, bevor sie etwas interesanter zu tun hat.” And “hat zu tun” at the end sounds wrong, so the “push it to the end preference seems swapped around. Any ideas? Many thanks.
Nice question, I had to think for a second. Indeed, here you CAN’T move the zu-part to the end. The reason is that it is one unit with “etwas interessantes”.
The whole block answers to one question:
– What does she have?
– Something more interesting to do.
– Was hat sie?
– Etwas interessanteres zu tun.
So since it’s one unit, it needs to stay together in that order.
And the “zu tun” doesn’t really stand by itself. It#s a closer description of “etwas”.
– … , dass ich [etwas schönes] habe.
– …, dass ich [etwas zu tun] habe.
This is different to an actual zu-construction where the VERB is the boss and gets additional bits of info attached.
– Ich versuche [zu lesen].
– Ich versuche [ein Buch zu lesen].
So “etwas zu tun” is perceived as an object, not a verb-phrase and hence it must come before the final verb.
Hope that made sense :). If not, I’m ready for follow up questions!
Hi, great explanations! Thanks for the time you take to teach other people ;)
On the section of:
Wouldn’t it be better to write: “Ich habe gestern mit Maria gesprochen”?
Thanks!
Luis
Absolutely! The section was about version that are NOT the “norm”, so that’s why your version isn’t in there. But it’s definitely the one to pick usually :).
I was comfortably sitting on the belief that the infinitive verb phrases in German were built in some order that I don’t have the words to describe, but that is the opposite of English (and some Roman languages too).
to-want(1) to-go(2) running(3) = laufen(3) gehen(2) wollen(1)
to-may(1) be(2) taken(3) = besitzt(3) werden(2) dürfen(1)
The whole phrase is conjugated by conjugating the verb with number 1 above, and comes, as expected, in position 2 in main sentences and at the end in side sentences.
Ich laufe(1) heute.
Ich gehe(1) heute [ laufen(2) ].
Ich will(1) heute [ laufen(3) gehen(2) ].
Ich habe gesagt, dass ich heute [ laufen(3) gehen(2) ] will(1).
Jemand besitzt(1) jetzt den Stuhl.
Der Stuhl wird(1) jetzt [ besitzt(2) ].
Der Stuhl darf(1) jetzt [ besitzt(3) werden(2) ].
Ich habe gesagt, dass jetzt der Stuhl [ besitzt(3) werden(2) ] darf(1).
I even had a boost of confidence once I found such a case in a novel (translated in 1984).
Sie half denen, die im Schatten lebten, die tagsüber im Stadtbetrieb untertauchten, die aber bei Einbruch der Nacht versteckt(3) werden(2) mußten(1), jedesmal an einem anderen Ort.
Until I came across the following examples. All three are in side sentences, where I expected the conjugated verb at the end. The full verb phrase is indeed at the end, but the conjugated verb is first in the phrase and not last. I expected 3-2-1 and found 1-3-2.
Ich dachte nicht, daß ich so lange leben würde, wie ich gelebt habe, und daß sie so lange auf mich würden(1) warten(3) müssen(2).
In den Geschäften wurden nach und nach wieder Dinge verkauft, die nicht einmal dem Namen nach bekannt waren, und andere, die sich nur die Reichen auf Schmuggelwegen hatten(1) beschaffen(3) können(2).
Jaime stieg in sein Auto, froh, daß er seines Berufes wegen auf eine wöchentliche Zuteilung Benzin Anrecht hatte, weil er andernfalls mit dem Fahrrad in die Innenstadt hätte(1) fahren(3) müssen(2).
Now, in the first example (Sie half denen…), the “core” verb (I don’t know how to call it) has an auxiliary and the modal verb is only one word.
versteckt werden mußten
core-verb-partizip(3) core-verb-auxiliary(2) single-word-modal(1)
And in the other three, the core verb is the active voice infinitive (so one word), the modal verb has an auxiliary, and it’s that auxiliary the one in the unexpected position.
würden warten müssen
hatten beschaffen können
hätte fahren müssen
modal-auxiliary(1) core-verb-infinitive(3) modal-infinitive(2)
I didn’t find an example, but doch wonder how that would be with both the core and modal verb in compound forms. Would it happen there too? Is the following translation correct?
I said that the car would-have(1) had-to(2) be(3) repaired(4) at some point.
Ich habe gesagt, dass das Auto irgendwann hätte(1) genommen(4) werden(3) müssen(2).
So, “if the modal has an auxiliary, then this auxiliary goes first” is like… too arbitrary for me. There has to be something behind. Do you know what it is?
Thanks for reading such a long message and no rush at all for an answer that may be long. Happy to wait if it deserves an article instead.
Oh man! I swear this time I searched for it before commenting. I just didn’t notice these were all conditionals and therefore I didn’t come across the Conditional Saga I’m binging on right now. The answer is probably there, so feel free to not answer here, and thanks for your patience!
You’ll be disappointed, I fear :).
I don’t have a definite, logical answer to WHY the helper takes the spot that it takes.
That said, though, it’s not a phenomenon typical to conditional.
– … dass ich mir [habe] mehr Mühe [habe] geben wollen.
This is a spoken past of “Mühe geben wollen”, not exactly idiomatic, but for demonstration purposes.
– …, dass ich mir mehr Mühe geben gewollt habe…. NOPE
And if it’s any comfort, I definitely hear native speakers make mistakes with this word order when they’re speaking on the fly – you won’t hear “geben gewollt habe,” but you might hear an accidental “geben wollen habe.”
Ha! Noticing natives make a mistake is a foreigners’ secret pleasure. :)
Thank you both for your answers!
Hi Emanuel,
In the beginning of the Tao of End section, I noticed your translation of “Ich mache das Licht aus” was “I turn the light on” … shouldn’t that be “I turn the light off “?
… this is great website, love your explanations !!!
Whoops, you’re totally right. “ausmachen” is “turn off”. Thanks for that and they nice feedback!!
By the way… Montréal is one of my favorite cities. Absolutely loved it!
Yeah, it is a lovely place, although not so much these days, but we will survive. Cheerio.
Uff, yeah, same here. We just need to be patient and wait it out :)
Wie vorher gesagt habe ich Deutsch von zuhören und sprechen gelernt. (Hamburg, 1955-57). D.h. alles war zusammengeklappt: Wortschatz, der/die/das, Struktur, und – meiner Meinung nach – das Wichtigste: Aussprache. Für mich ist die Frage immer noch: wie klingt es? Deine Erklärungen und Beispiele sind erste Klasse. Nur eins, wegen Englisch: einmal schreibst du “different to,” und das ist die englische Mode. Später kommt “different than,” und das ist schlecht amerikanisch. Es darf different from sein.
“Zu habe ich die Tür gemacht” sagt mir: Pass auf, du dummer Esel! AUF habe ich die Tür nicht gemacht sondern ZU.
Ja genau :). Das wäre ein passender Kontext für einen Satz wie “ZU habe ich die Tür gemacht.”
Es gibt also drei Versionen? Different from/to/that?
Braucht man wirklich nur eine davon?
– This was different than last time.
– That was different to what he said.
Mein Sprachgefühl würde so sagen, aber ich habe mein Sprachgefühl von Youtube, also nicht so verlässlich :)
Also “different to” gibt’s im AE überhaupt nicht. “Different from” habe ich als “korrekt” gelernt aber “different than” ist für viele Leute idiomatisch. Mit “from” braucht man eigentlich ein Substantiv oder einen substantivierten Satz. Von daher wäre für mich folgendes richtig:
Wobei “This was different than last time” für mich schon ganz okay klingt, weil eigentlich korrekt wäre:
Mit from würde der Satz auch richtig klingen so, wie er ist, oder ergänzt:
Also in dem Satz passt beides, je nachdem, welche Worte “ausgelassen” sind. ABER: Sehr viele (zumindest amerikanische) Muttersprachler würden quasi immer than verwenden (“A Helles is different than a Pils”).
Hello, I’m here just to tell people how great Emanual is, because I told him I didn’t have the money to pay for the course and he just signed me up for free for one whole year :) so if you’re not signed up yet and are wondering if he’s really gonna help you if you need it, I guarantee you he is
I hear this a lot, at least in speech:
Ich habe ES mir angewöhnt, jeden Morgen eine Runde laufen zu gehen.
I see this pronoun serving two purposes. First, it gives the verb an object at its official place, so that the main sentence is rounded up by the time the verb arrives and nothing has to be unstacked and stacked again. Second, as a placeholder without a back reference, it cues the listener that more information comes next. The syntax is still questionable, because now there’s two objects, but it sounds friendlier to my brain.
There is a figure of speech like this called Cataphora. Looks like a literary tool made it in to solve a grammar difficulty.
You’re quite spot on with your analysis!! Well done.
Let me add that “es” like this one are to some extend a matter of what’s idiomatic. In this case for example, we can also skip it and it still works, other verbs with the same configuration MUST have it, and again others sound weird when you put it there.
Idiomatic-ness overrides reasoning for those.
I talked more about stuff like that in the article on “es”, if you want to dig more :)
Oh! “The emptiest pronoun possible” :). Yet so rich to write an article about.
Thanks for the suggestion! I’ve enjoyed es and learned even more.
Let me point out that the search function doesn’t bring any results when looking for “es” alone. I had to search for “es pronoun” and scroll a bit. Not so big a deal, but other articles on short or stop words may be harder to find. Coincidentally, these tend to be juicy words to squeeze and you may have articles on many of them.
Adding a link for anyone else who’s curious like me. If you go under Vocabulary > By Date, you can see a list of all the articles. It can be a fun way to poke around when you’re not sure what to read :)
Yeah, that’s the only archive that shows ALL articles. Including announcements, troll articles, review and so on.
That’s the raw-form archive, so to speak :)
I know! The search function sucks.
As soon as we finish the new version of the Dictionary, I’ll take it down, I think. Or connect the dictionary to it. Right now, it’s still a bit too slow.
This was really interesting because I’ve just been starting to notice that stuff like this (first example) happens pretty often. Like in unscripted podcasts and late night talk shows (some of them like SWR Nachtcafe can be pretty interesting).
I was trying to think of similar examples in English, like maybe:
I gave it to Maria yesterday, the stuffed unicorn.
I gave the stuffed unicorn yesterday….to her? to Maria?
The first one is something I could easily picture myself saying. With the second one, it hurts to try to finish the sentence because “gave” really wants to come with the information about who the thing was given to. I might have said stuff like this on days when I couldn’t word good, but the thought just feels too incomplete.
With the examples in the article, it’s kind of funny because time seems like it’s normally important information, but “ich habe mit Maria gesprochen” seems like a complete thought and “ich habe gestern gesprochen” doesn’t.
As far as TV shows, some of the new-ish ones I’m watching:
Succession (fun and well done, pulled me in more than I expected)
Rita (a little darker, but I’m a sucker for characters who march to their own drum)
The Americans (good if you like politically-tinged stuff)
Haus des Geldes (just started, but definitely planning on finishing)
Thanks a lot for the recommendations :)!!
And also for the parallels to English.
What’s going on under the hood is the same… certain info wants to be close to the verb in German AND in English. It’s just that in German the real verb slot is at the end, while in English it’s after the subject. Same dynamics, different results.
This article like all of your articles are extremely informative and very amusing. I actually think I am getting the idea of German sentence structure and am liking it (which is really strange). I had a good laugh at the Fliedermaussuppe by the way. We need as much levity as possible in 2020.
Glad to hear the structure is starting to click :)!
I have two ideas for future topics.
For the nationalities, aren’t there countless lists online? I would have thought there were :). As for the other suggestion… do you mean an explanation or a compilation?