The Student Room Group

German word order

Hi, I've been slightly confused lately with German word order and the fact that verbs need to go second place. I know that with certain words i.e weil, dass, relative pronouns and obwohl etc that they don't have to but are there any other exceptions?

For instance how would I say 'in my opinion good parents should want the best for their children'? Is it:

Meiner meinung nach sollen gute Eltern das Beste für ihre Kinder

Meiner meinung nach gute Eltern sollen das Beste für ihre Kinder

OR NEITHER!?

Please help, thanks
Original post by maarg13
Meiner meinung nach sollen gute Eltern das Beste für ihre Kinder
Meiner meinung nach gute Eltern sollen das Beste für ihre Kinder
OR NEITHER!?


Almost, but you forgot the "want". :smile: It's very easy to forget the trailing verbs in German, but if you do forget then your sentence ends up making no sense at all. :laugh:

Here are a few example sentences in different structures. I hope I haven't made any mistakes :s-smilie:

Meiner Meinung nach, soll(t)en gute Eltern das Beste für ihre Kinder wollen.
(In my opinion, good parents should want the best for their children)

... weil gute Eltern das Beste für ihre Kinder wollen sollten.
(because good parent shoud want the best for their children)

Obwohl gute Eltern das Beste für ihre Kinder wollen sollten, wollen viele Eltern, dass ihre Kinder auch dafür arbeiten.
(although good parents should want the best for their children, many parents want their children to work for it)

The last one contains an interesting structure - whereas in English you might say "I want him to do that.", in German you'd say "Ich will, dass er das macht."

Although it becomes very natural and useful once you get your head around it, to begin with German word order can be difficult. Your best bet is to buy a good grammar book with an accompanying exercise book, such as "Hammer Grammar", or perhaps something more accessible to begin with such as "Essential German Grammar"
(edited 10 years ago)
Original post by maarg13
Hi, I've been slightly confused lately with German word order and the fact that verbs need to go second place. I know that with certain words i.e weil, dass, relative pronouns and obwohl etc that they don't have to but are there any other exceptions?

For instance how would I say 'in my opinion good parents should want the best for their children'? Is it:

Meiner meinung nach sollen gute Eltern das Beste für ihre Kinder

Meiner meinung nach gute Eltern sollen das Beste für ihre Kinder

OR NEITHER!?

Please help, thanks


From your two given examples, the first one makes sense if you add 'wollen' and the second one doesn't make sense.

A better way to phrase it would be: 'Meiner meinung nach sollten Eltern nur das Beste für ihre Kinder wollen'
Reply 3
thank you both very much, on the essay I am writing I have included wollen at the end of the sentence but just forgot to here!! ...and thanks for the correction with the t in sollten as well:smile:
Original post by maarg13
thank you both very much, on the essay I am writing I have included wollen at the end of the sentence but just forgot to here!! ...and thanks for the correction with the t in sollten as well:smile:

Keep up the work :smile: German is a hard language to learn, I'm fluent and I still find it hard
Reply 5
Original post by simonbaker123
Keep up the work :smile: German is a hard language to learn, I'm fluent and I still find it hard


Thanks, German is my favourite subject and I would love to be fluent! I'm not going to give up until I achieve this... I hope. Did you become fluent just learning German from school or do you have family who are are German or something like this?
Original post by maarg13
Thanks, German is my favourite subject and I would love to be fluent! I'm not going to give up until I achieve this... I hope. Did you become fluent just learning German from school or do you have family who are are German or something like this?


It's definitely achievable.
I'm swiss so I speak swiss-german, but I've lived in England all my life. I watched a lot of German tv when i was younger so I learnt how to talk actual German from there, and for writing I just usually read german books to help with that
Reply 7
Original post by The Polymath
Almost, but you forgot the "want". :smile: It's very easy to forget the trailing verbs in German, but if you do forget then your sentence ends up making no sense at all. :laugh:

Here are a few example sentences in different structures. I hope I haven't made any mistakes :s-smilie:

Meiner Meinung nach, soll(t)en gute Eltern das Beste für ihre Kinder wollen.
(In my opinion, good parents should want the best for their children)

... weil gute Eltern das Beste für ihre Kinder wollen sollten.
(because good parent shoud want the best for their children)

Obwohl gute Eltern das Beste für ihre Kinder wollen sollten, wollen viele Eltern, dass ihre Kinder auch dafür arbeiten.
(although good parents should want the best for their children, many parents want their children to work for it)

The last one contains an interesting structure - whereas in English you might say "I want him to do that.", in German you'd say "Ich will, dass er das macht."

Although it becomes very natural and useful once you get your head around it, to begin with German word order can be difficult. Your best bet is to buy a good grammar book with an accompanying exercise book, such as "Hammer Grammar", or perhaps something more accessible to begin with such as "Essential German Grammar"


Thank you! I will check out those books

Quick Reply

Latest