Das Kabel war plötzlich kaputt, darum konnte niemand drucken.

The cable suddenly broke, so nobody could print.

Breakdown of Das Kabel war plötzlich kaputt, darum konnte niemand drucken.

• sein: to be
• darum: therefore
• können: can
• plötzlich: suddenly
• niemand: nobody
• drucken: to print
• das Kabel: the cable
• kaputt: broken

Questions & Answers about Das Kabel war plötzlich kaputt, darum konnte niemand drucken.

Why is war used instead of ist?

The sentence describes a past situation, so it uses the simple past (Präteritum) of sein, which is war. In written and formal German, war is preferred to talk about past states. If you used the present, ist, you’d imply the cable is still broken now.

What part of speech is kaputt, and why doesn’t it change form?

kaputt is an adjective used predicatively (i.e. after a linking verb like sein). Predicative adjectives in German do not take endings, so you always say Das Kabel war kaputt, not kaputtes or any other form.

What does darum mean, and how does it affect word order?

darum is a sentence adverb meaning therefore, for that reason, or so. When you put darum in first position, German’s verb-second (V2) rule requires the finite verb to come directly after it. That’s why konnte follows darum, and then the subject niemand comes next.

Why is the verb konnte placed before niemand?

Because darum occupies position one, the finite verb must be in position two. To satisfy V2 word order, konnte comes in second place and the subject niemand is pushed to third.

Why use the modal verb können here instead of a perfect tense like hat … gedruckt?

With können you express ability or inability—niemand konnte drucken means no one was able to print. Saying niemand hat gedruckt only states that nobody printed anything, without focusing on the fact they tried but couldn’t.

Can I replace darum with deshalb or deswegen?

Yes. darum, deshalb, deswegen, and daher are interchangeable sentence adverbs meaning therefore. All of them can be fronted and will still trigger verb-second order: Deshalb konnte niemand drucken.
Deswegen konnte niemand drucken.

How would the sentence look with weil?

Using the subordinating conjunction weil, you introduce a subordinate clause that pushes the verb to the end: Weil das Kabel plötzlich kaputt war, konnte niemand drucken.
Or you can put the weil-clause at the end (keeping V2 in the main clause): Niemand konnte drucken, weil das Kabel plötzlich kaputt war.