Being a native English speaker, I find the word order in German pretty difficult to grasp and looks random.
How come?
Name:
Anonymous2014-03-27 10:02
Because it's different than in English.
Name:
Anonymous2014-03-29 19:11
VP's aren't head-initial
If you can't handle that, you really aren't trying
Name:
Anonymous2014-03-31 4:24
English is an SVO (Subject-Verb-Object) language, German is an SOV (Subject-Object-Verb) language.
e.g., a valid sentence in English is "He ate an apple". A valid sentence in German would have the structure "He an apple ate."
Verbs come after the subject so it can be a little unintuitive and confusing to someone who's unaware of the structure.
Name:
Anonymous2014-03-31 4:39
That isn't true.
In German it is valid to say:
Ich esse ein Apfel. (I'm eating an Apple). Which is SVO.
However because of the cases in German word order is partially about emphasis.
i.e. "Den Mann beisst der Hund" (The dog bites the man) is the same as "Der Hund beisst den Mann"
In fact the only real rule in German is that a verb must occupy the second position of a sentence.