Breakdown of Was hat Opa gesagt? Wir sollen immer die Wahrheit sagen.
haben
to have
wir
we
sagen
to say
immer
always
was
what
der Opa
the grandpa
sollen
should / ought to
die Wahrheit
the truth
Questions & Answers about Was hat Opa gesagt? Wir sollen immer die Wahrheit sagen.
Why do we use sollen here instead of müssen?
sollen is perfect for expressing what someone else wants or advises you to do, translating well to 'are supposed to' or 'should'. Because Grandpa is the one who set this expectation, we use sollen. If it were a strict absolute rule you were forced to follow, you would use müssen.
Why is sagen all the way at the end of the sentence?
This is the standard rule for modal verbs in German. The conjugated modal verb (sollen) takes the second position in the sentence, and it pushes the main action verb (sagen) to the very end in its dictionary form (infinitive).
Why are there two different forms of 'say' (gesagt and sagen) in this short example?
They belong to two different grammatical rules! In the first sentence, gesagt is the past participle used with hat to form the past tense ('did say'). In the second sentence, sagen is the infinitive form, which is required at the end of the sentence by the modal verb sollen.
Why does the German sentence use sagen for 'tell the truth' instead of a word for 'tell'?
In English we say 'tell the truth', but German expresses this literally as 'say the truth' (die Wahrheit sagen). While German has verbs like erzählen for telling a story, you always use sagen when talking about telling the truth or a lie.
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