Breakdown of Wir wollten es versuchen, aber wir konnten es nicht schaffen.
es
it
aber
but
wir
we
nicht
not
können
can / to be able to
wollen
to want
schaffen
to manage / to accomplish
versuchen
to try
Questions & Answers about Wir wollten es versuchen, aber wir konnten es nicht schaffen.
Why are we using wollten and konnten instead of the spoken past tense (Perfekt)?
Even in casual spoken German, modal verbs like wollen (to want) and können (to be able to) are almost always used in the simple past (Präteritum) instead of the spoken past (Perfekt). It is much more natural and common to say wir wollten (we wanted) rather than wir haben gewollt.
Why are the verbs versuchen and schaffen at the very end of their clauses?
When you use a conjugated modal verb like wollten or konnten in the second position of a sentence, the main action verb gets pushed to the very end of the clause in its infinitive (unconjugated dictionary) form.
Does the word aber (but) change the word order in the second half of the sentence?
No. Aber is a coordinating conjunction, which means it connects two sentences without affecting the word order. It sits in "position zero", so the subject (wir) stays in position one and the verb (konnten) stays in position two, just like in a normal main clause.
What exactly does schaffen mean in this context?
While schaffen can mean "to create," in everyday German it very frequently means "to manage," "to accomplish," or "to get something done." Here, wir konnten es nicht schaffen means "we couldn't manage it" or "we couldn't succeed."
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