Main Clause (Hauptsätze)
Main Clauses are grammatically complete sentences that can stand alone. They usually consist of Subject, Verb and Object.
The Conjugated verb is always in Position 2.
- „Ich komme aus Deutschland.“
Subordinate Clause (Nebensätze)
Subordinate Clauses usually cannot stand alone because some information is missing without which the sentence makes no sense.
The Conjugated verb is at the end.
- „ …, das ich gestern verloren habe.“
Recommendation: The different Subordinate Clauses
There are many different Subordinating Clauses. Most are introduced by Subordinating Conjunctions. Relative Clauses are introduced by Relative Pronouns, and Infinitive Clauses don't need a word at all to trigger the subordinate clause. If you have trouble with subordinate clauses, I recommend my lesson: The Subordinate Clause
Sentence Structure in General (Satzbau im Allgemeinen)
In German, sentence structure and word order are much more flexible than in other languages.
There are 2 main factors that influence Sentence Structure:
- How important is the information?
- Is it a Main clause or a Subordinate clause?
Of course, not everything is possible. I'll explain what other rules you need to follow in the other lessons on Sentence Structure.
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Related Topics:
Entire lesson in German only: Der Unterschied zw. Hauptsatz und Nebensatz
More information on Sentence Structure and Word order:
- Wortstellung im Hauptsätze (Word Order in Main Clause)
- Wortstellung im Nebensätze (Word Order in Subordinate Clause)
- Der Nebensätze (The Subordinate clause)
- Wortstellung in Fragen (Word Order in Questions)
- Fragen mit Präpositionen (Questions with Prepositions)
- Indirekte Fragen (Indirect Questions)
- Verneinung (Negation)
- Die position von „nicht“ (The Position of "nicht")
- Satzklammern (Sentence Brackets)
- Konjunktionen (Conjunctions)
- Nebenordnende Konjunktionen (Coordinating Conjunctions)
- Mehrteilige Konjunktionen (Multi-Part Conjunctions)
- Unterordnende Konjunktionen (Subordinating Conjunctions)
- Konjunktionaladverbien (Conjunctional Adverbs)
You can find an overview of all topics under German Grammar.
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