Breakdown of Die Agentur, der wir vertrauen, ist sehr kompetent.
sein
to be
sehr
very
wir
we
vertrauen
to trust
Questions & Answers about Die Agentur, der wir vertrauen, ist sehr kompetent.
Why is the relative pronoun der? Doesn't der mean it is a masculine noun?
It looks masculine, but here der is actually the feminine dative relative pronoun! It points back to die Agentur (the agency), which is a feminine noun. We must use the dative case here because the verb in the relative clause, vertrauen (to trust), always requires a dative object. The dative relative pronoun for feminine nouns is der.
Wait, why does vertrauen require the dative case?
In English, we just trust someone (a direct object). But in German, vertrauen is one of those special verbs that always takes a dative object. You can think of it as giving your trust 'to' someone or something. Because of this rule, the relative pronoun replacing the agency has to be in the dative case.
Why is vertrauen at the very end of that middle section?
The phrase der wir vertrauen is a relative clause (a mini-sentence that describes a noun). In German, relative clauses are a type of subordinate clause. This means the conjugated verb, which is vertrauen here, gets pushed to the very end of that specific clause.
Are the commas around der wir vertrauen strictly necessary?
Yes! In English, we sometimes drop commas around 'that' clauses, but in German, you must always use commas to separate a relative clause from the main sentence. Because this relative clause interrupts the main sentence (Die Agentur ist sehr kompetent), you need one comma before der and another one right after vertrauen.