Breakdown of Wir wollen erstens keine Arbeit mehr aufschieben.
kein
no, not any
wir
we
die Arbeit
the work
wollen
to want
Questions & Answers about Wir wollen erstens keine Arbeit mehr aufschieben.
How does the word erstens work here compared to the regular word for "first"?
erstens translates to "firstly" or "first of all". It is an adverb created by adding the suffix -ens to the ordinal number erste (first). You use it to list points in an argument. Unlike regular adjectives, these -ens adverbs are unchangeable, meaning they never take case endings.
Can I move erstens to the front of the sentence to emphasize it?
Yes, you can say Erstens wollen wir keine Arbeit mehr aufschieben. Placing it first strongly emphasizes that this is your primary point. Just remember the V2 rule: because the adverb erstens takes position one, the conjugated verb wollen must stay in position two, pushing the subject wir to position three.
Why is it keine Arbeit mehr instead of nicht Arbeit mehr?
aufschieben is a separable verb. Why is it written as one word at the end of this sentence?
The modal verb wollen takes the conjugated second position in the sentence, which forces the main verb aufschieben to the very end in its full, unchanged infinitive form. Separable verbs only split when they are the conjugated verb in the sentence.