Wanneer haar dochter huilt, probeert Anna haar eerst te troosten met warme thee.

Because wanneer introduces a subordinate clause. In Dutch, the conjugated verb usually goes to the end of a subordinate clause.

So:

• Wanneer haar dochter huilt
• literally: When her daughter cries

This is a very common Dutch pattern:

• Als ik tijd heb = if/when I have time
• Omdat hij moe is = because he is tired
• Toen we aankwamen = when we arrived

So the final position of huilt is normal after wanneer.

Because the sentence starts with the subordinate clause:

• Wanneer haar dochter huilt, ...

After that opening element, Dutch puts the conjugated verb first in the main clause. This is the usual verb-second (V2) rule.

So the main clause becomes:

• probeert Anna haar eerst te troosten ...

If you started directly with the subject, you would get:

• Anna probeert haar eerst te troosten ...

But once Wanneer haar dochter huilt comes first, probeert must come before Anna.

It is the same word in form, but it has different functions.

1. haar dochter
   Here haar means her as a possessive adjective:

   • her daughter

2. Anna haar eerst te troosten
   Here haar is an object pronoun meaning her:

   • Anna tries to comfort her

In this sentence, the second haar most naturally refers to the daughter.

So Dutch uses haar both for:

• her
  • noun → haar dochter
• her as object pronoun → troosten haar / in this sentence structure haar te troosten

After proberen, Dutch normally uses te + infinitive.

So:

• proberen te troosten = to try to comfort

This is similar to English try to comfort.

Other examples:

• Ik probeer te slapen. = I’m trying to sleep.
• Ze probeert te helpen. = She is trying to help.

So te is required here because troosten is the second verb after probeert.

Because proberen directly takes te + infinitive. You do not normally say proberen om te ... in standard Dutch.

Natural:

• Ze probeert hem te bellen.

Less standard / usually avoided:

• Ze probeert om hem te bellen.

So in this sentence, probeert ... te troosten is the normal structure.

Eerst means first. It tells you that comforting her is Anna’s first response.

In this sentence:

• probeert Anna haar eerst te troosten

The word order is natural because eerst often comes in the middle part of the clause, before the infinitive phrase.

It can be helpful to think of the structure as:

• probeert = conjugated verb
• Anna = subject
• haar = object
• eerst = adverb
• te troosten = infinitive phrase

Dutch adverbs like eerst, altijd, vaak, waarschijnlijk often appear in that middle area.

It goes with te troosten. It tells you the means or method Anna uses to comfort her.

So the idea is:

• Anna tries to comfort her with warm tea

Grammatically, met means with, and warme thee is the thing used in that comforting action.

A learner might wonder whether it sounds a little unusual. It is grammatically fine, though in real life speakers might also say something more explicit like:

• ... door haar warme thee te geven = by giving her warm tea

But the original sentence is still correct.

Because thee is a de-word in Dutch:

• de thee

An adjective before a de-word normally takes -e:

• de warme thee

Compare:

• de warme thee
• de koude koffie
• de kleine dochter

If it were an het-word used in some indefinite situations, the adjective can sometimes appear without -e, but here with de thee, warme is exactly what you expect.

They are both present tense singular forms.

• huilen → huilt
• proberen → probeert

They match their subjects:

• haar dochter huilt → her daughter cries
• Anna probeert → Anna tries

This is the normal Dutch present tense pattern for hij/zij/het and singular nouns:

• ik huil
• jij huilt / huil je

• zij huilt

• ik probeer
• jij probeert / probeer je
• Anna probeert

Yes, in many everyday contexts it could.

• Wanneer haar dochter huilt, ...
• Als haar dochter huilt, ...

Both can mean when her daughter cries.

A rough guide:

• wanneer can sound a bit more formal or explicit
• als is very common in everyday speech for repeated situations

So this sentence with als would also be natural:

• Als haar dochter huilt, probeert Anna haar eerst te troosten met warme thee.

Then the main clause would follow the normal subject-first order:

• Anna probeert haar eerst te troosten met warme thee wanneer haar dochter huilt.

Or more naturally:

• Anna probeert haar eerst met warme thee te troosten wanneer haar dochter huilt.

The key difference is this:

• If the sentence starts with Anna, you get Anna probeert
• If the sentence starts with Wanneer haar dochter huilt, you get probeert Anna

That is the Dutch verb-second rule again.

A little, yes. Grammatically, haar just means her, so by itself it does not spell out exactly who her is.

In this sentence, the most logical interpretation is that haar refers to haar dochter. Context makes that clear.

Dutch often allows this kind of pronoun reference when the intended person is obvious. If a speaker wanted to be extra clear, they could repeat the noun, but that is usually unnecessary.