Breakdown of Hast du viel Erfahrung gesammelt, als du in Spanien gelebt hast?
du
you (informal singular)
in
in
haben
to have
viel
much / a lot
Spanien
Spain
als
when (past single event)
leben
to live/reside (in a place)
die Erfahrung
the experience
sammeln
to gather
Questions & Answers about Hast du viel Erfahrung gesammelt, als du in Spanien gelebt hast?
Why is the German word for "when" als here, instead of wenn?
In German, als is used for a specific event or period of time that happened only once in the past. Living in Spain was a single, finished period in this person's life. If you were talking about the present, the future, or something that happened repeatedly, you would use wenn.
Why does the sentence end with gelebt hast instead of putting hast after du?
The word als is a subordinating conjunction. This type of word creates a dependent clause and always kicks the conjugated verb to the very end of that clause. Here, the conjugated helper verb is hast, so it moves past in Spanien and the past participle gelebt to sit at the absolute end.
Why do we use gesammelt (collected) with Erfahrung?
In English, we usually say we "gain" or "get" experience. In German, the natural expression is Erfahrung sammeln, which literally translates to "gathering" or "collecting" experience. So, Erfahrung gesammelt is the standard way to say you gained experience.
Both halves of this sentence use the spoken past tense (Perfekt). Is that normal?
Yes! You have the main clause Hast du... gesammelt? and the subordinate clause als du... gelebt hast. While you could use the simple written past tense (like als du in Spanien lebtest), spoken German strongly prefers the Perfekt tense, so it is very common to see it used in both parts of the sentence.
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