All About German Language

Indirect questions are sentences that either contain or do not contain question adverbs, with these adverbs functioning as conjunctions within a complex sentence. Therefore, these sentences are dependent clauses. We differentiate the main clause (HS), which can be: Können Sie mir sagen, ... (Can you tell me, ...) Entschuldigung, wissen Sie, ... (Excuse me, do you know, ...) Ich möchte wissen, ... (I would like to know, ...) Er fragt, ... (He asks, ...) These main clauses are often followed by an indirect question introduced by a conjunction like ob , wie , wo , etc., which introduces the dependent clause. A dependent clause (NS) is introduced by the conjunction ob or question adverbs (W-Fragen). The conjunction ob is used in questions, as well as in sentences expressing uncertainty or doubt: Ob er heute noch kommt? (Is he coming today?) Es war nicht sicher, ob das richtig war. (It was not certain whether that was correct.) An example with dass in this context: Ich bin nicht sicher, ...

Conjunctions: JE ...DESTO/UMSO The construction "je ... desto/umso" is used in dependent clauses. It employs multi-part, separable conjunctions, with "je" introducing the dependent clause (NS), while "desto" or "umso" function as correlatives in the main clause (HS). The dependent clause in a sentence with the construction "je ... desto/umso" usually precedes the main clause. However, within the main clause (HS), the order of sentence elements can vary, as demonstrated in the following examples:               a) Je größer ein Auto ist, desto mehr Benzin braucht es.               b) Je mehr ich arbeite, desto weniger Freizeit habe ich.               c) Je weniger Vertrauen du zu mir hast, desto trauriger werde ich. In examples (a) and (b), it is evident that the second position in the main clause does not contain the personal verb form, but another sentence element. This happens becau...