Breakdown of Sie hatten Glück, aber wir hatten Pech.
haben
to have
aber
but
das Glück
the luck
wir
we
sie
they
das Pech
the bad luck
Questions & Answers about Sie hatten Glück, aber wir hatten Pech.
The English translation says "They were lucky", so why does the German sentence use hatten (had) instead of waren (were)?
In English, you are lucky, but in German, you have luck. The phrase is Glück haben (to have luck). Since this sentence is in the past tense, we use hatten, the simple past form of haben.
Does Sie hatten mean "they had" or "she had"?
Here, it means "they had" (it could also mean the formal "you had"). We can tell because of the verb ending. hatten is the plural form. If it meant "she had", the verb would be singular: Sie hatte.
What does Pech literally mean?
Pech literally means "pitch" or "tar", but in everyday German it is the standard word for "bad luck". Just like with Glück, Germans say you have bad luck (Pech haben). So wir hatten Pech translates literally to "we had bad luck".
Why doesn't the word aber (but) change the word order of the second clause?
The word aber is a coordinating conjunction. Words in this category (like und, oder, and aber) count as "position zero". They simply link two sentences together without affecting the word order. So in the second half of the sentence, wir takes position 1, and the verb hatten stays securely in position 2.
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