| Briefe in die türkische Heimat mit guten Wünschen zum neuen Jahr haben Tradition. Denn Briefe überwinden die Ferne und verbinden Menschen. Mit einem Brief sagen wir: „Ich denke an Dich“ und sorgen so dafür, Beziehungen zu Familie und Freunden in aller Welt zu pflegen. | Nouns are highlighted in red. Verbs are highlighted in blue Weak endings are highlighted in green |
| Briefe in die türkische Heimat mit guten Wünschen zum neuen Jahr (zu dem neuen Jahr) Letters into the Turkish homeland with good wishes to the new year |
Note how the Subject, Briefe, joins with three prepositional phrases to form the first element of the sentence. So there are only three (3) elements, and the first element consists of eleven (11) words! Essentially, the main skeleton of the sentence is: "Letters have tradition." The prepositional phrases let you know what kind of letters they are. |
| haben have |
German word order places a verb
as the second element of the
sentence. This sentence only has one verb. When parsing a German
text, look for the first occurence of a verb, and you'll find a single
coherent element preceding the verb. Sometimes it's an entire clause. |
| Tradition |
Tradition is the direct object |
| denn because |
Click on "denn" to get a feel
for this conjunction. It is used here to provide emphasis.
Note also that it is not considered a sentence element, i.e. you
can look at it as element zero (element one is "Briefe"; the second
element is "überwinden.") |
| Briefe
überwinden die Ferne und (Briefe) verbinden Menschen. Letters surmount distance and (letters) connect people. |
Verbinden is also used to
connect people over a telephone. |
| Mit
einem Brief sagen wir: „Ich denke an Dich“ with a letter we say: "I am thinking about you" |
Not how the verb again appears
as the second element. Also, in personal letters "du, dich, and dir" are capitalized.
German does not have a progressive
tense, so you have to supply it when translating. "I think,
therefore I am thinking." |
| und
sorgen so dafür, Beziehungen zu Familie und Freunden in aller Welt
zu pflegen. and make sure to preserve connections to family and friends throughout the world |
The "da" in "dafür is
called a da-compound;
the da refers to the letter (Brief). |