In my previous post, I explained the word order of a basic German sentence, containing the following grammatical entities:<\/p>\n
S = subject: ich (I)<\/p>\n
V = verb: schreibe (am writing)<\/p>\n
O = object: einen Brief (a letter)<\/p>\n
T = time: heute (today)<\/p>\n
L = location: im B\u00fcro (at the office)<\/p>\n
My example sentence was:<\/p>\n
Ich schreibe einen Brief.<\/strong> (S+V+O) \u2013 I am writing a letter.<\/p>\n To where I added the information about the TIME<\/span> and LOCATION<\/span> of my action:<\/p>\n Ich schreibe heute<\/span><\/strong> einen Brief im B\u00fcro<\/span><\/strong>.<\/strong> (S+V+T<\/span>+O+L<\/span>) \u2013 Today I am writing a letter at the office.<\/p>\n In this post I am going to explain what I have to do when I want to attach the TIME or LOCATION of my action at the beginning of a sentence.<\/p>\n When doing this, I have to make sure to execute some word shift. That is, I have to interchange the subject and the verb. So, the word order is no longer subject + verb<\/strong> (ich schreibe) but becomes verb + subject<\/strong> (schreibe ich). Compare:<\/p>\n Ich<\/span><\/strong> schreibe<\/span><\/strong> heute<\/span><\/strong> einen Brief im B\u00fcro. (S<\/span><\/strong>+V<\/span><\/strong>+T<\/span><\/strong>+O+L)<\/strong><\/p>\n and<\/p>\n Heute<\/span><\/strong> schreibe<\/span> ich<\/span> einen Brief im B\u00fcro. (T<\/span><\/strong>+V<\/span><\/strong>+S<\/span><\/strong>+O+L)<\/strong><\/p>\n In German we call this \u201cversetzte Wortreihenfolge\u201d (SHIFTED WORD ORDER). Unfortunately, I cannot give a logical explanation why we interchange the subject and verb here, but it would just sound odd if we didn\u2019t do it.<\/p>\n I can also add the LOCATION at the beginning of my sentence, which asks for the word shift, too. Compare:<\/p>\n Ich<\/span><\/strong> schreibe<\/span><\/strong> heute einen Brief im B\u00fcro<\/span><\/strong>.<\/strong> (S<\/span>+V<\/span>+T+O+L<\/span>)<\/p>\n and<\/p>\n Im B\u00fcro<\/span><\/strong> schreibe<\/span><\/strong> ich<\/span><\/strong> heute einen Brief.<\/strong> (L<\/span>+V<\/span>+S<\/span>+T+O)<\/p>\n All you have to do is to bring the TIME or LOCATION at the beginning of the sentence, execute the word shift (S+V becomes V+S) and the rest of the sentence remains unchanged.<\/p>\n Here is the key of my last post\u2019s exercise:<\/strong><\/p>\n If you like, you can apply the rule I have just explained to these sentences in order to exercise the construction of German sentences.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In my previous post, I explained the word order of a basic German sentence, containing the following grammatical entities: S = subject: ich (I) V = verb: schreibe (am writing) O = object: einen Brief (a letter) T = time: heute (today) L = location: im B\u00fcro (at the office) My example sentence was: Ich…<\/p>\n\n