Word
Wem der Dresscode egal ist, den ignoriere ich.
Meaning
Whoever the dress code does not matter to, I ignore.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Wem der Dresscode egal ist, den ignoriere ich.
ich
I
sein
to be
wem
whom
der
who, which, that (relative pronoun; die, das)
Questions & Answers about Wem der Dresscode egal ist, den ignoriere ich.
Why does the sentence use Wem at the beginning but den in the second half?
This happens because the two halves of the sentence require different cases for the same person! Wem is dative because the phrase egal sein (to not matter) requires a dative person (literally "to whom it is equal"). But in the second half, that same person is being ignored. The verb ignorieren takes an accusative direct object, so we must use den (him/that person).
Why do we need the word den here at all? Couldn't we just leave it out?
You need den as a "pointer" or placeholder. When a free relative clause (the Wem part) is in a different case than what the main sentence needs, you must use a pronoun like den to bridge the gap. It provides the accusative case that ignorieren is looking for.
Why does the second part say den ignoriere ich instead of ich ignoriere den?
German places the pronoun den right after the comma to keep a tight link to the relative clause it refers back to. Because den takes up the first position in this main clause, the verb ignoriere must take the second position (the standard "verb second" rule), which pushes the subject ich into the third position.
How does egal ist translate to "does not matter"?