There are many SOV languages, including Japanese and Turkish. In fact, SOV is the most common word order, followed by SVO and after a gap VSO.
The thing about German is that it can be both but the word order isn’t free either, as it is in Latin, but there are rules that aren’t straightforward at first glance. So short sentences often have SVO with a 1:1 translation to English but the more complicated the sentence, the more often you have SOV, especially when you count the content word and not the auxiliary. I can go into more detail how this so called “verb second” works if you want. But I think that that’s where the frustration comes from: easy sentences are intuitive and then – boom – out of the blue it changes.
Also: German is a Western European language so English native speakers are more likely to come into contact with it.
I’m a native German speaker. German is only strictly SOV in dependent clauses, in main clauses verb is is always in second position (V2) and if it’s more than one verb everything else is pushed to the end of the clause.
I’m also a native speaker and you said nothing that contradicts what I said. I even elaborated on the difference between auxiliary and content verbs. No one cares about the former.
I’m glad I started learning German way after Latin. By then, playing around word order was already intuitive; and even V2 gets easier to understand. (“So, SOV like Latin, but if V2 is empty I kick the last verb there. Got it.”)
There are many SOV languages, including Japanese and Turkish. In fact, SOV is the most common word order, followed by SVO and after a gap VSO.
The thing about German is that it can be both but the word order isn’t free either, as it is in Latin, but there are rules that aren’t straightforward at first glance. So short sentences often have SVO with a 1:1 translation to English but the more complicated the sentence, the more often you have SOV, especially when you count the content word and not the auxiliary. I can go into more detail how this so called “verb second” works if you want. But I think that that’s where the frustration comes from: easy sentences are intuitive and then – boom – out of the blue it changes.
Also: German is a Western European language so English native speakers are more likely to come into contact with it.
I’m a native German speaker. German is only strictly SOV in dependent clauses, in main clauses verb is is always in second position (V2) and if it’s more than one verb everything else is pushed to the end of the clause.
I’m also a native speaker and you said nothing that contradicts what I said. I even elaborated on the difference between auxiliary and content verbs. No one cares about the former.
I’m glad I started learning German way after Latin. By then, playing around word order was already intuitive; and even V2 gets easier to understand. (“So, SOV like Latin, but if V2 is empty I kick the last verb there. Got it.”)