Breakdown of Jedoch war der Neustart besser als mein bisheriger Plan.
sein
to be
mein
my
besser
better
als
than
der Plan
the plan
der
who, which, that (relative pronoun; die, das)
jedoch
however
der Neustart
the fresh start
bisherig
previous
Questions & Answers about Jedoch war der Neustart besser als mein bisheriger Plan.
Why does the verb war come immediately after Jedoch? Doesn't it mean the same as aber?
While jedoch and aber both mean however or but, they affect sentence structure differently. Aber is a coordinating conjunction (position 0), so it doesn't shift the verb's place. Jedoch is an adverb. When you put an adverb in position 1 at the start of a clause, the conjugated verb must immediately follow in position 2.
Why does bisheriger end in -er here?
The noun Plan is masculine and is in the nominative case here. Because the possessive article mein has no ending in the masculine nominative, the following adjective has to step up and show the gender by taking the strong ending -er.
I often mix up als and wie. Why is it besser als here?
You use als for unequal comparisons, meaning when one thing is more, less, or better than another (like besser). You use wie for equal comparisons, usually with so ... wie (as ... as). Since the new start is better than the old plan, the comparison is unequal, so we use als.
The word bisheriger looks like it comes from bisher (until now). Can we turn adverbs into adjectives like this?
Often, yes! You can frequently add -ig to adverbs of time or place to turn them into adjectives. Here, the adverb bisher (until now) becomes the adjective bisherig- (previous), which then takes the required adjective ending.
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