Breakdown of Wir wussten, die Operation konnte nicht mehr warten.
wir
we
nicht
not
können
can / to be able to
warten
to wait
Questions & Answers about Wir wussten, die Operation konnte nicht mehr warten.
After Wir wussten, shouldn't the second part be a subordinate clause with the verb at the end?
It would be if we used dass (Wir wussten, dass die Operation nicht mehr warten konnte). However, German often drops dass after verbs of thinking, saying, or knowing. When you drop dass, the following clause uses standard main-clause word order, with the conjugated verb (konnte) in the second position.
This lesson is about the passive voice with past modal verbs. Is this sentence in the passive voice?
No, this sentence is actually in the active voice. The surgery itself is doing the action of waiting (warten). If we wanted to use the passive voice to express that the surgery could not be delayed anymore, we would use the structure you are learning: die Operation konnte nicht mehr verschoben werden (Modal past + Past Participle + werden).
Why are we using the simple past (wussten, konnte) here instead of the spoken past (Perfekt)?
While spoken German usually prefers the Perfekt for past events, there is a small group of verbs where the simple past (Präteritum) is strongly preferred even in casual speech. This group includes modal verbs like können (konnte) and the verb wissen (wusste). Using the Perfekt here (Wir haben gewusst or hat nicht warten können) sounds clunky and is much less common.
Can inanimate objects like die Operation really wait () in German?