Word order

The verb sits in slot two — no exceptions

ShortcutWhatever you put first, the conjugated verb never leaves slot two. The subject drops in behind it.

That is the one real law of the German sentence: the conjugated verb always stands in slot two. Whatever you put in front — the subject, a time, a place, a whole subordinate clause — the verb does not budge.

Put anything other than the subject first and the subject drops behind the verb. Grammar books call this Inversion; you can simply remember it as “they swap places”. English does it only in questions (“Are you…?”); German does it in every statement that doesn’t open with the subject.

“Second position” counts slots, not words. Mein kleiner Bruder is three words but one slot: Mein kleiner Bruder geht heute ins Kino. The verb is still right behind it.

Whatever you put first: four openings, one sentence

The first slot — the Vorfeld — takes exactly one element, and which one you choose changes the emphasis, not the meaning. All four are perfectly grammatical:

The middle: TeKaMoLo

The area after the verb is called the Mittelfeld, and it isn’t random either. The default order of the four kinds of adverbial is named after their first syllables: Te–Ka–Mo–Lo.

Pronouns never join the queue

If you have memorised TeKaMoLo and your sentence still sounds off without you knowing why, this is almost always the reason: pronouns ignore that order and jump right behind the verb — even in front of the time.

When two objects meet, there is a fixed order too. One-sentence rule: the shorter one goes first. A pronoun is short; a long noun phrase comes last.

Where exactly does nicht go

The most-asked piece of word order. One-sentence rule: nicht stands right in front of the part that goes to the end. If nothing goes to the end, it goes to the end of the sentence.

You decide between kein and nicht on the negation page, not here; this table only asks where nicht goes.

Subordinate clauses: the rule suddenly changes

The moment you meet weil · dass · wenn · obwohl · damit · ob, the “verb second” rule is switched off for that little clause: the conjugated verb goes to the very end. The TeKaMoLo in the middle stays exactly as it was; only the verb piles up at the end.

There is a lifesaver: denn. It still means “because”, but it breaks nothing — a normal sentence follows it. When you’re unsure, use denn.

Three places where TeKaMoLo doesn’t work

A word of honesty: TeKaMoLo is not a law, it’s a default. It applies when you aren’t stressing anything in particular. Germans bend it all the time when they talk, and there are three deviations you should know.

• Fronting for emphasis. Whatever you move to the front is what you’re stressing: Nach Berlin fahre ich nur einmal im Jahr. — I only go to Berlin once a year. The only thing that changed is the Vorfeld; the verb is still in slot two.
• Two time expressions: general to specific. Ich komme morgen um 8 Uhr. — not “um 8 Uhr morgen”. The same goes for places: big to small.
• If the reason is a subordinate clause, it doesn’t go into the Ka slot. It gets added at the end: Ich fahre morgen nach Berlin, weil ich arbeiten muss. In the same way deshalb usually sits in the Vorfeld: Ich bin krank. Deshalb komme ich nicht.

So don’t memorise this page and then mark Germans’ sentences as “wrong”. Know the default, and when you hear a deviation, work out what is being emphasised.

What to do this week

This topic is a matter of reflex, not rules; you won’t get it by reading. The one exercise that builds the reflex: write the same sentence with four different openings. It takes five minutes, and it sinks in within a week.

• Build an everyday sentence: Ich fahre morgen mit dem Auto nach Izmir.
• Start the same sentence with the time: Morgen fahre ich…
• Start the same sentence with the manner: Mit dem Auto fahre ich…
• Start the same sentence with the place: Nach Izmir fahre ich…
• Last step: turn the same sentence into a subordinate clause with weil — the verb goes to the end.

If you get stuck while writing, read the sentence out loud. If the verb isn’t in slot two, the rhythm of a German sentence breaks, and your ear catches it before your eye does.