Word order
English lost its case endings, so word order does the grammar: the dog bites the man and the man bites the dog differ only by position. The order is rigidly Subject – Verb – Object, and the golden rule is: never separate the verb from its object.
SVO, always
| S | V | O | rest |
|---|---|---|---|
| The children | ate | the cake | in the garden yesterday. |
| She | speaks | English | fluently. |
- No German V2: a fronted time expression does not move the verb — Yesterday I saw him (✗ Yesterday saw I him).
- No Romance object pronouns before the verb: I see her (✗ I her see — je la vois).
- Questions and negation change order only via auxiliaries — see Questions and Negation.
Never split verb and object
This is where Romance speakers stumble hardest — adverbs cannot sit between verb and object:
| ✗ | ✓ |
|---|---|
| I like very much this city. | I like this city very much. |
| She speaks well English. | She speaks English well. |
| He reads often the news. | He often reads the news. |
Where adverbs go
| type | position | example |
|---|---|---|
| frequency (always, often, usually, never, also, just) | mid: before the main verb, after be/auxiliaries | She often works late. · He is always tired. · I have never seen it. |
| manner (slowly, well, hard) | after the object / end | She sang the song beautifully. |
| place, then time | end, in that order | I worked at home yesterday. (✗ yesterday at home) |
| time, as topic-setter | or first, with a comma | Yesterday, I worked at home. |
Rule of thumb for the end of a sentence: manner – place – time: He drove carefully (m) to work (p) this morning (t).
Adjectives before the noun
A red car, a very old house — always before, never after (✗ a car red). Only fixed phrases and reduced clauses follow: the people responsible, something interesting. See Adjectives.
Indirect objects: two patterns
| pattern | example |
|---|---|
| V + person + thing | She gave him the book. |
| V + thing + to/for person | She gave the book to him. |
Both fine; but with two pronouns prefer the second: She gave it to him (✗ She gave him it is awkward).
Phrasal verbs can split — pronouns must
Turn off the light / turn the light off — both fine. With a pronoun, only one order: turn it off (✗ turn off it).
Fronting for emphasis is limited
English mostly keeps SVO and uses stress or clefts for emphasis, where Romance and German would reorder:
- C'est lui que j'ai vu → It was him (that) I saw. (it-cleft)
- Das weiß ich nicht → I don't know that. (no fronting)
- There fills the subject slot for existence: There's a problem (✗ Is a problem — Spanish hay un problema).
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