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I started reading/translating this book in german and I have some questions to ask:
Why do germans put the verb last? Or is it just a Hesse thing?
I get the feeling that half of the phrases are just pretty writing, can someone confirm that this is a poetically written work?
Was this a good book to start learning german? Or Hesse in general?
I have studied compulsory swedish for 6 years with thin results (due to the compulsory nature of it), but I've always been intrigued to learn german
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>>8586875
They don't put the verb last . . .
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>>8586879
From the foreword:
"Als Hesse diese Erzählung schrieb"
It's not regular, but when it happens it confuses me a lot
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>Among natural languages with a word order preference, SOV is the most common type (followed by subject–verb–object; the two types account for more than 75% of natural languages with a preferred order).[3]
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>>8586901
VSO
S
O
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>>8586901
>Among natural languages with a word order preference, SOV is the most common type
what
the
fuck
I've literally never before noticed this in any language
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>>8586906
Hebrew or turk?
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>>8586916
Shit was popularised in latin, where the word order is completely free but romans usually placed the verb last to keep their public speeches interesting.
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I'll try my best to answer your verb placement question. No, it's not a Hesse thing, it's a bona fried German thing.
In the most basic sentence the verb goes in the 2nd position. For example: Ich kaufe Bücher.
If there's a modal verb (z.B. möchten, willen, dürfen sollen, würden, werden) then the modal verb goes in the 2nd position and the verb it is referencing goes at the end. For exmaple: Ich will Bücher kaufen.
Maybe you know all that, but next you should learn that there are a list of conjunctions that kick the verb to the end. Really a lot of them do it, but you just have to memorize them. For example, both ''denn" and "weil" mean "because," but "denn" leaves the verb in the 2nd position, while "weil" kicks it to the end. So: "Ich bin arm, weil ich zu viele Bücher kaufen."
Here is a good list of which conjunctions do and do not kick verbs: https://www.quia.com/jg/1367652list.html
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>>8587145
Entschuldigung
Ich bin arm, weil ich zu viele Bücher kaufe***
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>>8586900
still the modalverb is in the 2nd position. germans do not put the verb at the last position in the normal sentence. you can get a verb in the last position if the sentence continues with a nebensatz and that also starts with a verb.
but old ass german is really fucking difficult to understand for foreigners.
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>>8586897
If you've got problems with simple syntax like this you shouldn't be starting to read whole books in German m8
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