Breakdown of Als sie sich selbstständig gemacht hat, gab es viele Probleme.
sie
she
machen
to make, to do
haben
to have
das Problem
the problem
viel
much / a lot
es gibt
there is / there are
sich
oneself / himself / herself / themselves (reflexive pronoun)
als
when (past single event)
selbstständig
self-employed
Questions & Answers about Als sie sich selbstständig gemacht hat, gab es viele Probleme.
Why is the word for "when" Als here instead of Wenn?
In German, you must use als when talking about a single event or a specific period of time in the past. Because becoming self-employed happened just once in the past, we use als. If you were talking about the present, the future, or an event that happened repeatedly, you would use wenn.
Why is hat at the very end of the first clause?
The word als is a subordinating conjunction, which means it kicks the conjugated verb to the very end of its clause. Because the sentence uses the past tense phrase hat gemacht, the conjugated helping verb hat gets pushed all the way to the comma, after the participle gemacht.
Why does the second part say gab es instead of es gab?
In German main clauses, the verb must always be in the second position. The entire first part of the sentence (Als sie sich selbstständig gemacht hat) counts as one big block in position one. To keep the verb in position two, the verb gab must come immediately after the comma, pushing the subject es after it.
Why is the reflexive pronoun sich used here?
The phrase sich selbstständig machen literally means "to make oneself independent." In English, you say "to become self-employed," but German uses this reflexive phrase with sich (oneself) and the verb machen (to make) to express the exact same idea.
Where does gab es come from?
Es gab is the simple past tense of the common phrase es gibt, which means "there is" or "there are." In this sentence, because the word order is flipped to keep the verb in the second position, it becomes gab es to mean "there were."
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