German sentence structure & word order: Your ultimate guide

The most basic sentence structure is always the same: ”I came.” “I saw.” “I read an article.” In German, you can switch a sentence around almost any way you like, and it will still make sense, but depending on where you put each part of the sentence, you’ll change the meaning.

Let’s look at the sentence “I speak German”.

“I” is the subject, “speak” is the main verb, and “German” is the object.

For basic sentences like that, German is generally the same: “Ich spreche Deutsch”.

However, it gets a little more complicated than that.

If you say “Deutsch spreche ich”, that still means “I speak German”, but the emphasis is on German, the first part of that sentence. You’d commonly use this, for example, if someone asked you “Do you speak German and Dutch?”, and you wanted to reply “I do speak German, but I don’t speak Dutch”. So you emphasize the “German”, by putting it first and saying “Deutsch spreche ich. Holländisch spreche ich nicht”.

If you change the sentence order by starting with the main verb of a sentence, that automatically turns your sentence into a question.

“Spreche ich deutsch?” - Do I speak German?

It’s a valid question you might be asking yourself when you encounter these complexities, even if you’ve been learning German for a while - but don’t doubt yourself! We’re here to break down all the rules of German grammar for you, including those for German sentence structure and word order!

Table of contents

• Basic rules of German sentence structure
• Position of time, manner, place in German sentences
• German word order in main clauses
• Word order in subordinate clauses
• German sentence structure with modal verbs
• Complex sentence structures in German
• Relative clauses and their structure
• German sentence structure with negation
• How to structure questions in German?
• Common mistakes when it comes to German sentence structure
• Conclusion

Basic rules of German sentence structure

There’s a reason why basic English sentence structure is always the same: It follows the Subject-Verb-Object (SVO) order. Simple German declarative sentences follow the same pattern, but as you’ve seen, you can move around parts of the sentence in a way you can’t do in German.

In order to put parts of a sentence in the correct order, we need to understand what “a part of a sentence” is. In German, we call this a “Satzteil” (sentence part). It’s a group of words that have to stay together in a sentence.

The two most important ones are the subject (“Subjekt” in German) and the main verb (“Prädikat” in German). Without these two elements, you can’t form a sentence. That’s how you can tell the main verb from other verbs.Look at the sentence: I swam in the pool, splashing around, lost in the moment.

It looks like we have three verbs here: swam, splashing and lost, but only one is absolutely crucial for the sentence ( “swam”), while the other two function as participles. Take away the splashing and the “lost in the moment” part, and your pool party just got a lot less fun, but your sentence is still grammatically correct: I swam in the pool.

Position of time, manner, place in German sentences

Once you have a subject and a main verb, you can add more elements. The TMP (Time, Manner, Place) can help you organize sentences. When a sentence includes time, manner, and place expressions, they typically follow this sequence:

1. Time (When?)
2. Manner (How?)
3. Place (Where?)

Let’s take the German sentence “Ich gehe jeden Freitag nach der Arbeit mit einer Freundin in die Bibliothek. (“I go to the library every Friday after work with a friend”). In German the sentence is structured like this: Subject | main verb | time | manner | place.

A lot of sentences follow the TMP rule. Here are some German examples with their literal English translations.

German word order in main clauses

Main verb: In German main clauses, the verb typically occupies the second position, a structure known as V2 word order. This rule means that the main verb comes directly after the first element or “Satzteil” of the sentence. This is the most reliable part of a German sentence.

• Subject: The subject often goes in the beginning, but as I’ve mentioned before, if you want to emphasize a different part of the sentence, that can go in the beginning instead, so don’t rely on the subject being the first thing you see!
• Time/Manner/Place: These elements will generally be in this order if they do appear.
• Object: Note that not every sentence has an object, but if it does, this usually goes at the very end.

Word order in subordinate clauses

Here’s one of the many reasons people find it so tricky to learn German. Once you’ve finally figured out where to put the verb in a main clause, you have to completely disregard that knowledge when it comes to subordinate clauses, and put the main verb at the end instead.

Subordinate clauses, also known as dependent clauses, are parts of a sentence that cannot stand alone as complete sentences. They provide additional information and rely on the main clause in order to make sense.Subordinate clauses are introduced by subordinating conjunctions like “because” that will make the subordinate clause dependent on the main clause.These are the subordinating conjunctions you need to look out for:

These will always cause the main verb to move to the end of the subordinate clause they’re part of:

German sentence structure with modal verbs

Modal verbs express abilities, possibilities, obligations, or desires:

• können (can),
• müssen (must),
• dürfen (may)
• sollen (should)
• wollen (want to),
• möchten (would like to).

Modal verbs tend to come in pairs with infinitives. In English, these modal verbs and their infinitives are logically placed together:

• I can speak German.
• I should go home.
• I would like to eat a marshmallow.

So a lot of English speakers make the mistake of doing the same thing in German, but in this case, the modal verb is the main verb, so it goes in second place, while the infinitive moves to the end of the sentence:

• Ich kann deutsch sprechen.
• Ich sollte nach Hause gehen.
• Ich würde gerne einen Marshmallow essen.

Complex sentence structures in German

Once you combine main clauses with subordinate clauses and add multiple different elements like time, manner and place, German sentences can get quite complex. Here are a few examples for you to practice:

Watch out! The main clause doesn’t always come before the subordinate clause. If you want to stress the information in the subordinate clause, that one will come first instead:

Relative clauses and their structure

Relative clauses in German provide additional information about a noun mentioned in the main clause. This is how you structure a relative clause in German:

• Relative Pronoun: The relative clause includes a relative pronoun, which refers back to a noun in the main clause. It usually goes in the beginning of the clause
• Choose the right pronoun based on gender, case, and numerus: “der”, “die”,“das”, “den”, “dem”, “denen”, “deren”, or “dessen”, generally translating to "which," "who," “whose”, or "that" in English
• Verb Position: In relative clauses, the main verb is placed at the end of the clause

Every other element follows the same rules as a main clause.

For a detailed breakdown on when to use which relative pronoun, refer to our helpful German pronoun guide!

German sentence structure with negation

In German, there are two ways to negate a sentence: with “nicht” (not) and “kein” (no).

Negating sentences with "nicht"

When you want to negate the main verb or action of a sentence, "nicht" is usually placed at the end of the sentence:

Example:

• Ich kenne den Film. → Ich kenne den Film nicht.

If the verb consists of two parts because you’re either using an auxiliary verb (i.e., “can do”) or the tense you’re using requires two parts (i.e., will do”), the “nicht” comes before the second part of the verb.

Examples:

• Ich kann das machen. → Ich kann das nicht machen.
• Ich werde das machen. → Ich werde das nicht machen.

Negating sentences with "kein"

Kein" is used to negate nouns and functions similarly to the English "no" or "none." It replaces the indefinite article and changes according to the case, gender, and number of the noun. It comes directly before the noun it negates.

Examples:

• Mein Freund hat ein Auto. → Mein Freund hat kein Auto.
• Ich habe Angst. → Ich habe keine Angst.
• Meine Katzen haben Hunger. → Meine Katzen haben keinen Hunger.

How to structure questions in German?

Sometimes you can take a declarative sentence in English, and turn it into a question by simply changing the sentence order, for example:

I can do that → Can I do that?

In English, this only works for very specific cases, but in German, this works all the time!

All you need to do is find the main verb and move it to the beginning like this:

The other way to form a sentence is with a question word like “who”, “how” “when”, etc. In German, these question words always go in the beginning of the sentence.

Common mistakes when it comes to German sentence structure

I know it’s a lot, but just try to avoid the mentioned common mistakes and stick to these rules:

• Avoid direct translation: German sentence structure often differs from English, so focus on learning common German patterns instead of translating word-for-word.
• Verb placement: Remember that in main clauses, the verb usually comes in second place, and in subordinate clauses it goes at the end.
• Conjunctions: If you spot a conjunction like “weil”,”wenn”, “obwohl” etc., watch out for subordinate clauses that might follow it.
• "Nicht" vs "kein: Use "nicht" to negate verbs and "kein" to negate nouns.
• Word division: Note that Some words are split in main causes but written as one in subordinate clauses, and vice versa (“Ich warte. Du kommst zurück.” vs. “Ich warte bis du zurückkommst.”)
• Colloquialism: Sometimes German like to say things like “Weiß ich nicht” (Don’t know). While it looks like the sentence structure is twisted here, the sentence is actually just short for “Das weiß ich nicht”, and because it’s colloquial, we skip the “das”. Don’t let that confuse you! It’s not related to the sentence structure.

I came. I saw. I learned something!

I know, sentence structure can be one of the most confusing lessons for German learners. If you’ve made it this far, you deserve to switch it up with some lighter topics next. How about German flowers or birds?

We have dozens of fun articles on our German language blog to choose from!