Breakdown of Meistens schützt uns die Psyche.
uns
us
meistens
mostly / usually
schützen
to protect
die Psyche
the psyche
Questions & Answers about Meistens schützt uns die Psyche.
Why does the object uns come before the subject die Psyche?
This is a core rule of the German Mittelfeld (the part of the sentence after the conjugated verb). When the subject is pushed after the verb by a starting word like Meistens, pronoun objects jump ahead of noun subjects. Since uns is a pronoun and die Psyche is a full noun, uns comes first.
How would the word order change if we replaced die Psyche with the pronoun sie?
If the subject is also a pronoun, it claims the spot right after the verb, beating the object pronoun. The sentence would become: Meistens schützt sie uns. (Subject pronoun beats object pronoun).
Is uns dative or accusative here?
It is accusative. The verb schützen (to protect) takes a direct accusative object for the person or thing being protected. Because the pronoun uns looks exactly the same in both dative and accusative, you have to know how the verb works to identify the case.
Can I use meist instead of meistens here?
Yes, both mean 'mostly' or 'usually' and are largely interchangeable in this context. Meistens is an adverbial form created by adding an -s (similar to abends or morgens), and it is very common at the beginning of spoken sentences.