Sentence structure?

I am still a little confused by the German sentence structure. Sometimes it's similar to English: subject, verb, predicate. But most of the time it isn't. What is the most common way a sentence is structured? Danke!!

Hey Libby, you are right there are more complicated sentences which don't have the structure of subject, one verb and object. However the main rule in German sentence structure is that the verb should always be the 2nd "idea" in a sentence. Here is a typical sentence of subject (S) followed by the verb (V) with the object (O) at the end. Deine Mutter (S) backt (V) Kuchen (O) – Your mum bakes cake. Don't let yourself be irritated by adjectives. Deine liebe Mutter (S) backt (V) einen leckeren Kuchen (O). When the sentence goes into a tense, the part of haben, sein or werden comes after the subject and the relevant form of the main verb goes to the end. Deine Mutter (S) hat (V) Kuchen gebackt – Your mum has baked cake. Sentences with a subject, one verb, an indirect object and direct object Deine Mutter (S) backte (V) der Frau (IO) den Kuchen (DO) Your mum baked the woman the cake. Deine Mutter (S) backte (V) den Kuchen (DO) für die Frau (IO). Your mum baked the cake for the woman. Adverbs are in general placed next to the words they are referring too but if you place them at the start you get the same structure you would use in a question. The reason for this is as I mentioned before, the verb has to be placed 2nd in a sentence. Normalerweise backt Mutter Kuchen. - Normally mum bakes cake. Backt Mutter Kuchen? - Is mum baking cake? I hope it helps! Paul P.S.: I corrected your sentences in the forum section 'German conversation'.

halo Paul i have the same problem with sentence construction sometimes the german confuses me in cases like for example : um 12uhr habe ich eine Termin i realised that after time or seasons and when it is a question the habe comes before the ich but i realised it also applies to other cases that i have not got the grasp of,please explain to me how this works.. thanks

Paul, will give you a more thorough explanation, but there is a basic rule that says the verb should be the second element in a declarative sentence, not necessarily the second word, but the second element. When there is another element, which is not the subject, the verb comes second which places it before the subject. There seem to be some exceptions and it is not always clear to me when something qualifies as an element, but I'm sure Paul can help us with that.