Breakdown of Doch, mein Bruder war dran und wollte ziehen!
sein
to be
und
and
mein
my
der Bruder
the brother
wollen
to want
doch
yes (contradicting a negative question)
dran
one's turn / next (whose turn it is)
ziehen
to draw / to pull
Questions & Answers about Doch, mein Bruder war dran und wollte ziehen!
Why does the sentence start with Doch, and why is it translated as "Yes, he was!"?
Doch is used to contradict a negative statement or question. In this context, someone probably just said something like "It wasn't your brother's turn!". You use doch to disagree and say "On the contrary, yes he was!". English doesn't have a single word for this, so we translate it based on the context.
What does war dran mean here?
It comes from the phrase dran sein, which is a common way to say "to be one's turn". Since the sentence is in the past tense, ist dran (is his turn) becomes war dran (was his turn).
Does ziehen usually mean "to pull"? Why is it translated as "to draw"?
Yes, the most common meaning of ziehen is "to pull". However, in the context of board games or card games, ziehen means "to draw" (like taking a card from a deck) or "to move" (a playing piece on a board).
Why is it wollte ziehen instead of a spoken past tense like "hat ziehen gewollt"?
wollte is the simple past tense of the modal verb wollen (to want). Even in spoken German, which usually prefers the perfect tense with haben or sein for most verbs, we almost always use the simple past for modal verbs. So, wollte ziehen simply means "wanted to draw".
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