Breakdown of Der neue Konkurrent mag brillant sein, aber er unterschätzt uns.
sein
to be
er
he
aber
but
neu
new
Questions & Answers about Der neue Konkurrent mag brillant sein, aber er unterschätzt uns.
I know mögen as "to like". Why is it translated as "may" here?
This is the subjective, concessive use of mögen. While its most common meaning is "to like," here it expresses a concession. It works exactly like "may" in the English phrase "he may well be brilliant, but..." You are granting a point before countering it in the next clause.
Could I use könnte instead of mag here to mean "may" or "might"?
You could, but the meaning shifts. Er könnte brillant sein means "He might be brilliant" (expressing a guess or uncertainty). Using mag shows you are conceding the point: you accept that he probably is brilliant, but you are setting up a contrast that makes his brilliance irrelevant.
Why doesn't aber push the verb unterschätzt to the end of the sentence?
As a quick refresher, aber is a coordinating conjunction (along with words like und, oder, and denn). It connects two main clauses without affecting the word order. It sits in "position zero" of the second clause, so the subject er is in position 1, and the conjugated verb unterschätzt stays in its normal spot at position 2.
Why isn't the prefix unter- separated at the end of the sentence, like schätzt uns unter?