How can I get to grips with German word order?

Word order in German can seem daunting, as it often does not follow the same pattern as English. However, there are rules to help you, and the more you read and listen in German, the more you will have a natural feel for how a sentence should be constructed.

We can divide this into four sections to think about.

Conjunctions which do not change the word order, such as:

aber, und, denn

e.g. Ich trinke gern Tee, aber ich hasse Kaffee.

Conjunctions which send the verb to the end (subordinating conjunctions) of the sentence.

The most commonly used are:

weil, wenn, als, bevor, nachdem, obwohl, seit/seitdem, während

e.g. Seitdem wir in Deutschland wohnen, sind wir sehr glücklich.

Modal verbs also send the verb to the end:

e.g. Ich will ins Kino gehen, aber ich muss meine Hausaufgaben machen.

As do relative pronouns:

e.g. Die Katze, die dort drüben auf der Mauer sitzt, ist schwarz.

Words that invert the word order so that the verb comes before the subject

These are often conjunctions relating to time, such as:

heute, gestern, normalerweise, später, dann

e.g. Normalerweise fahre ich mit dem Rad zur Schule.

With multiple adverbs, it’s important to remember the rule TIME, MANNER, PLACE.

e.g. Ich spiele jeden Dienstag Fußball mit meinen Freunden im Park

Time manner place

There are, of course, more conjunctions and adverbs to learn in terms of how they influence word order, but these are some of the most common and good to get you started!