Breakdown of Ich kaufte den Lautsprecher, aus dem die Musik kommt.
ich
I
kaufen
to buy
kommen
to come
aus
from / out of (made of)
die Musik
the music
der
who, which, that (relative pronoun; die, das)
der Lautsprecher
the speaker
Questions & Answers about Ich kaufte den Lautsprecher, aus dem die Musik kommt.
Why do we use aus dem here?
The phrase aus dem translates to "out of which" or "from which". The preposition aus always forces the word following it into the dative case. Because Lautsprecher (speaker) is a masculine noun (der Lautsprecher), its dative relative pronoun is dem.
Why is the preposition aus at the start of the relative clause? English puts "from" at the end!
English allows you to leave prepositions at the very end of a sentence, like "comes from". German strictly forbids this. In a German relative clause, the preposition must sit right in front of the relative pronoun it belongs to, keeping aus dem together.
Why does German use aus instead of von for "from" in this sentence?
German is very literal about physical space. Since the sound is physically being pushed out from inside the device, you must use aus (out of). Von would sound like the music is merely traveling from the general outside direction of the speaker.
Why is kommt at the very end of the sentence?
The phrase aus dem die Musik kommt is a relative clause, which is used to give more information about the speaker. Relative clauses are a type of subordinate clause, and in German, subordinate clauses always kick their conjugated verb (here, kommt) to the very end of the phrase.
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