Breakdown of Obwohl das Telefonbuch dick war, haben wir die Adresse irgendwie gefunden, wenn wir sie gesucht haben.
sein
to be
sie
she
haben
to have
wir
we
suchen
to look for
finden
to find
wenn
if / when (conditional, not a question word)
dick
thick / fat
der
who, which, that (relative pronoun; die, das)
obwohl
although
die Adresse
the address
irgendwie
somehow
das Telefonbuch
the telephone directory
Questions & Answers about Obwohl das Telefonbuch dick war, haben wir die Adresse irgendwie gefunden, wenn wir sie gesucht haben.
Since the sentence is in the past tense, why do we use wenn instead of als?
In German, als is only used for a single, one-time event in the past. Because searching for the address in the phonebook happened multiple times (it was a repeated event), you have to use wenn. In this context, you can think of wenn as meaning "whenever".
Why does the main part of the sentence start with the verb in haben wir rather than wir haben?
The sentence begins with a subordinate clause (Obwohl das Telefonbuch dick war). In German grammar, this entire clause counts as the first position of the sentence. Since the main verb must always be in the second position, haben comes right after the comma, and the subject wir gets pushed right behind it.
Does the sie at the end of the sentence mean "they"?
No, here sie means "it". It refers back to die Adresse. Because Adresse is a feminine noun, you must use the feminine pronoun sie to say that you searched for "it".
Why is there a mix of past tenses, with war in the first part but haben ... gefunden later on?
This is a very common pattern in conversational German. While most action verbs use the spoken past (Perfekt) tense (like haben ... gefunden), the verbs sein (to be) and haben (to have) are almost always used in their simple past (Präteritum) forms like war and hatte because it flows much more naturally in conversation.
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