DAMIT GERMAN GRAMMAR HOW TO
You might, of course, say: "The lance the squire gave to noble knight", or "To noble knight the squire a lance did give" - but these are all rather uncommon phrases in modern English speech, and we don't recommend using them in casual conversation! How To Structure German Sentences When Using Pronouns But as you can see from the English translations, English often needs to add a word or two for it to work - you couldn't say: "The lance gave the squire". Indirect Object + Verb + Subject + Direct ObjectĮnglish sometimes does this, too - in poetry ("dark was the night."). The knight was the one to whom the squire gave the lance. The squire gives the female knight a lance.Ī lance is what the squire gave the knight.ĭirect Object + Verb + Subject + Indirect Object Generally, this means that a noun can be brought to the beginning of the sentence to emphasise its importance. For, no matter the word order, the cases will still tell you the noun’s role in the sentence. This said, the existence of cases in the German language makes word order a bit more fluent than in English, which has confused more than one student of German. The Placement of Nouns in German Sentences Learn how German and English contrast here. Photo credit: MsAnthea via VisualHunt / CC BY-ND Because it uses cases, word order is a bit more fluid in German than in English. Subject + Verb + Indirect Object + Direct Objectįind German language classes near me.
The squire gave the (female) knight a lance, German says: Good news for English speakers! In German grammar, the basic sentence structure in a normal main clause is refreshingly like English:Īlso similar to English, the indirect object in German generally comes before the direct object. The Right Word Order in German for Main Clauses This is especially true of questions - think of the difference in meaning between the English sentences:Īll the words remain the same, but a change in word order makes the second one into a question, while the first is an assertation.Īlso, using a participle right after an auxiliary verb (see further below) is sure to out you as an "Ausländer"! Place your words correctly in a sentence and your German acquaintances are sure to be impressed. In some cases, word order determines the meaning of a sentence. Get their placement right in the sentence, and most Germans might not even hear that you used the wrong gender or case. If you have to choose (and when you are just starting to learn a foreign language, you will), it's easier to remember word order once than the proper gender of hundreds of words. And that's where it gets a little tricky. You will probably have trouble balancing vocabulary and grammar in any case, and even an advanced German scholar will sometimes get his cases wrong. Surely if, when learning German, you stick to a simple Subject + Verb + Object sentence, people will understand what you mean, even if it's not 100% perfect German grammar? Let's go Why Correct Word Order is Important
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