Breakdown of Das Aussehen ist mir vertraut, aber der Name ist unbekannt.
sein
to be
aber
but
der Name
the name
mir
me / to me (dative)
unbekannt
unknown
vertraut
familiar
das Aussehen
the appearance
Questions & Answers about Das Aussehen ist mir vertraut, aber der Name ist unbekannt.
Why is it mir and not mich with vertraut?
The adjective vertraut (familiar) belongs to a group of adjectives that govern the dative case. To express who something is familiar to, German uses the dative. So, instead of using a preposition like in English (familiar TO me), you simply use the dative pronoun mir.
Does unbekannt also take the dative case? Why is there no mir in the second half of the sentence?
Yes, unbekannt (unknown) can also take a dative object. You could perfectly say der Name ist mir unbekannt (the name is unknown to me). Leaving mir out just makes it a general statement: the name is simply unknown.
Why is Aussehen capitalized here? Isn't aussehen a verb?
It is originally a verb, but here it is being used as a noun meaning the appearance or the look. In German, you can turn any infinitive verb into a neuter noun (always taking the article das) simply by capitalizing it.
Why doesn't aber push the verb ist to the end of the sentence?
aber is a coordinating conjunction, which means it occupies position 0. It connects two regular main clauses without changing their word order. So in the second clause, der Name is in position 1, and the verb ist stays in its normal position 2.
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