Breakdown of Ihm tut manchmal der Kopf weh.
manchmal
sometimes
wehtun
to hurt
der Kopf
the head
ihm
him / it / to him / to it (dative)
Questions & Answers about Ihm tut manchmal der Kopf weh.
Why does the sentence start with Ihm instead of Sein (his)?
In German, when talking about body parts, it is very common to use a dative pronoun like ihm (to him) instead of a possessive word like sein (his). Germans literally say "To him hurts the head" rather than "His head hurts".
If Ihm means "to him", what is the subject of this sentence?
The subject is der Kopf (the head). You can tell because the head is the thing doing the action (it is hurting). German puts the conjugated verb in the second position, so because the sentence starts with Ihm, the subject der Kopf has to come after the verb tut.
Why is weh at the very end of the sentence?
It is part of the separable verb wehtun (to hurt). In a standard German sentence, the main part of the verb (tut) takes the second position, and the separable prefix (weh) gets kicked all the way to the end.
Could I say Sein Kopf tut manchmal weh instead?
Yes, you absolutely can! Sein Kopf (his head) is perfectly correct and means the exact same thing. However, using the dative pronoun format (Ihm tut der Kopf weh) is extremely common and natural in everyday spoken German.
How would I change this sentence to say "My head sometimes hurts"?
You just need to swap ihm (to him) for the dative pronoun that means "to me", which is mir. The sentence becomes: Mir tut manchmal der Kopf weh.
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