Breakdown of Mir tut heute der Kopf weh.
heute
today
mir
me / to me (dative)
wehtun
to hurt
der Kopf
the head
Questions & Answers about Mir tut heute der Kopf weh.
Why does the sentence use Mir instead of starting with "My head"?
Why does it say der Kopf (the head) instead of mein Kopf (my head)?
The dative pronoun mir already makes it perfectly clear whose head is hurting. Because of this, German just uses the regular word for "the" (der) for the body part instead of repeating the idea of "my" (mein).
If Mir is at the beginning, does that make it the subject of the sentence?
No, the subject is actually der Kopf (the head). The head is the thing doing the hurting! Because German is flexible with word order, you can put the dative pronoun mir first to emphasize who is experiencing the pain, as long as the verb (tut) stays in the second position.
Why is the word weh all the way at the end?
The verb for "to hurt" is wehtun. This is a separable verb. In a normal sentence, the core verb (tut) takes the second position, and the prefix (weh) gets kicked to the very end of the sentence.
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