Breakdown of Die Touristen wandern, egal ob die Vorhersage schlecht ist.
sein
to be
schlecht
bad
wandern
to hike
der Tourist
the tourist
Questions & Answers about Die Touristen wandern, egal ob die Vorhersage schlecht ist.
The current lesson is about es sei denn (unless). Could we use it here instead of egal ob?
You could grammatically, but it would completely reverse the meaning! The phrase egal ob means "no matter if" or "regardless of whether," showing the tourists will hike even if the weather is bad. If you used es sei denn (unless), it would mean a bad forecast would stop them: Die Touristen wandern, es sei denn, die Vorhersage ist schlecht (The tourists are hiking, unless the forecast is bad).
Why does the conjugated verb ist go to the very end of the second clause?
The word ob (whether/if) is a subordinating conjunction, which forces the conjugated verb to the end of its clause. Adding egal in front of it simply changes the meaning to "no matter whether," but the "verb-at-the-end" grammatical rule for ob remains exactly the same.
Could I say egal wenn instead of egal ob to mean "no matter if"?
No, you must use ob here. In German, ob is used for "whether" or "if" when dealing with a yes/no uncertainty (whether the forecast is bad or not). The word wenn is strictly for direct conditions (if X happens, then Y) or temporal events (whenever). Since you are expressing "regardless of whether," egal ob is the correct phrasing.
Is the comma strictly required before egal ob?