I am struggling to make sense of when to use “ist es” and “es ist” in module 2.1

Can someone help me? Because just when I think I have understood when to use “ist es” and when to use “es ist”, I mess up :( 

Hallo Philip-david-schmidtJ,

Thank you for your question!

Totally get that that would be confusing! The reason why you find “ist es” and somtimes “es ist” is because of the German word order. In German, the verb ("ist" here) is always in second position. Keep in mind that this means the verb is the second element of the sentence and not necessarily the second word.

Here are two examples from lesson 2.1:

“Heute ist es geöffnet.” - “Today it is open.”

"Es ist (heute) geöffnet." - “It is open (today).”

This rule changes when you change the statement into a question, e.g.:

“Ist es heute geöffnet?” - “Is it open today?”

Hope this helps you understand these sentences better!

There is more on word order in the lessons following 2.1.

Viele Grüße,

Julia