Breakdown of Ich brauchte meinen Bruder, deshalb weckte ich ihn.
ich
I
brauchen
to need
ihn
him
mein
my
der Bruder
the brother
deshalb
therefore / that is why
wecken
to wake up (someone)
Questions & Answers about Ich brauchte meinen Bruder, deshalb weckte ich ihn.
Why do we use brauchte here instead of the perfect tense like habe gebraucht?
While German speakers usually prefer the spoken past (Perfekt) for everyday conversation, certain common verbs like brauchen (to need) are exceptions. Just like haben and sein, brauchen is frequently used in the simple past (Präteritum) even when speaking. You form it regularly by adding -te to the verb stem.
How is the past tense of wecken formed in this sentence?
The verb wecken (to wake) is a regular (weak) verb in German. To form the simple past for ich, you take the verb stem weck- and add the regular past tense ending -te, resulting in weckte. Notice that while English changes irregularly from wake to woke, German is perfectly regular here.
Why is the word order deshalb weckte ich and not deshalb ich weckte?
The word deshalb (therefore / so) is an adverb that takes up the first position in its clause. In German main clauses, the conjugated verb must always be in the second position. So, the verb weckte comes immediately after deshalb, pushing the subject ich into the third position.
Why does the sentence use meinen Bruder and ihn instead of mein Bruder and er?
In both parts of the sentence, the brother is the direct object receiving the action (he is being needed, and he is being woken up). This means he must be in the accusative case. For masculine nouns, mein changes to meinen, and the pronoun er (he) changes to ihn (him).
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