Mein Freund übt jeden Tag Gitarre, weil ihn Musik weniger wütend macht.

My boyfriend practices guitar every day because music makes him less angry.

Breakdown of Mein Freund übt jeden Tag Gitarre, weil ihn Musik weniger wütend macht.

• der Freund: the friend
• weil: because
• machen: to make
• üben: to practice
• die Musik: the music
• ihn: him
• jeden Tag: every day
• weniger: less
• die Gitarre: the guitar
• wütend: angry

Questions & Answers about Mein Freund übt jeden Tag Gitarre, weil ihn Musik weniger wütend macht.

Why is it Mein Freund and not Meine Freund?

Freund is a masculine noun in German (der Freund).
The possessive mein- has to match the gender and number of the noun it modifies:

• mein Freund = my (male) friend
• meine Freundin = my (female) friend
• meine Freunde = my friends (plural)

So you use mein Freund, not meine Freund.

Why is there no article in Gitarre? Why not die Gitarre?

With musical instruments, German often omits the article when talking about playing or practicing the instrument in general:

• Er übt Gitarre. – He practises (the) guitar.
• Sie spielt Klavier. – She plays (the) piano.

If you say die Gitarre, it sounds more like a specific guitar:

• Er übt auf der Gitarre seiner Schwester. – He practises on his sister’s guitar.

In this sentence, we mean the activity in general, so Gitarre without an article is natural.

Why do we say übt Gitarre instead of spielt Gitarre?

Both verbs are possible, but they focus on different things:

• üben = to practise (focus on training, improving skills)
• spielen = to play (focus on the act of playing music)

So:

• Mein Freund übt jeden Tag Gitarre – He is training, working on his skills.
• Mein Freund spielt jeden Tag Gitarre – He plays guitar every day (may or may not imply deliberate practice).

Given the meaning (“practices guitar every day”), übt is the more accurate verb here.

Why is the word order Mein Freund übt jeden Tag Gitarre and not Mein Freund jeden Tag übt Gitarre?

In a main clause, German wants the finite verb in second position (the “V2 rule”):

1. Mein Freund – first position (subject phrase)
2. übt – second position (verb)
3. jeden Tag Gitarre – everything else (time + object)

So Mein Freund übt jeden Tag Gitarre is the normal order.

You could say Mein Freund jeden Tag Gitarre übt, but that sounds wrong in standard German because the finite verb (übt) is no longer in second position.

Could I also say Mein Freund übt Gitarre jeden Tag? Is that correct?

Yes, it’s grammatically correct:

• Mein Freund übt jeden Tag Gitarre.
• Mein Freund übt Gitarre jeden Tag.

Both are possible. The default teaching rule is Time – Manner – Place, so many teachers prefer jeden Tag earlier in the sentence, but placing Gitarre before jeden Tag is still acceptable and sounds natural in everyday speech.

Why is there a comma before weil?

Weil introduces a subordinate clause (a dependent clause giving a reason). In German, subordinate clauses are separated from the main clause by a comma:

• Mein Freund übt jeden Tag Gitarre,
  weil ihn Musik weniger wütend macht.

So the comma marks the boundary between the main clause and the subordinate clause.

Why does the verb macht go at the end in weil ihn Musik weniger wütend macht?

In a subordinate clause introduced by weil, the finite verb moves to the final position:

• Main clause (verb 2nd):
  Musik macht ihn weniger wütend.
• Subordinate clause (verb final):
  …, weil Musik ihn weniger wütend macht.

So with weil, you must put macht at the end of the clause. That’s a core word order rule in German.

Why is it ihn and not er or ihm?

The pronoun is in the accusative case, because it’s the direct object of macht:

• Nominative (subject): er – he
• Accusative (direct object): ihn – him
• Dative (indirect object): ihm – to him

In English: Music makes *him less angry.
So in German: *Musik macht ihn weniger wütend.
Therefore ihn (accusative) is correct.

Why is the order weil ihn Musik weniger wütend macht and not weil Musik ihn weniger wütend macht?

Both orders are grammatically correct:

• …, weil Musik ihn weniger wütend macht.
• …, weil ihn Musik weniger wütend macht.

The version in your sentence (ihn Musik) uses a common tendency in German:

Short pronoun objects often come before a full noun subject.

This can sound a bit more stylistic or emphasise ihn. In everyday modern German, weil Musik ihn weniger wütend macht is slightly more neutral and probably more common, but both are fine.

Is Musik the subject or the object in the second clause?

Musik is the subject; ihn is the direct object:

• Musik (nominative, subject)
• macht (verb)
• ihn (accusative, object)
• weniger wütend (object complement / result)

So the structure is:
[Subject] Musik – [Verb] macht – [Object] ihn – [Complement] weniger wütend.

What exactly does weniger wütend mean, and why not weniger wütender?

Weniger wütend means “less angry”.

There are two main ways to express “more/less + adjective” in German:

1. Normal comparative form:
   
   • wütend → wütender = angrier
2. Using mehr / weniger:
   
   • mehr wütend (rare here) = more angry
   • weniger wütend = less angry

Weniger works like “less + adjective”, so it is followed by the basic form of the adjective, not its comparative form.
That’s why you say weniger wütend, not weniger wütender.

What is the function of wütend in macht ihn weniger wütend?

Here wütend is an adjective used as a predicative complement. The structure is:

• macht ihn [Adjektiv] = “makes him [adjective]”

Examples:

• Das macht mich glücklich. – That makes me happy.
• Der Film macht sie traurig. – The film makes her sad.
• Musik macht ihn weniger wütend. – Music makes him less angry.

So wütend describes the resulting state of ihn.

Could I say weil Musik ihn nicht so wütend macht instead of weniger wütend?

Yes, that’s possible and natural. The meanings are very close:

• weniger wütend – less angry (focus on quantity)
• nicht so wütend – not so angry / not as angry (more comparative to a previous state or situation)

Both are acceptable; the original sentence simply chooses the more compact weniger wütend.

Could I use denn instead of weil here?

You can, but the sentence shape changes:

• With weil (subordinate clause, verb at the end):
  Mein Freund übt jeden Tag Gitarre, weil ihn Musik weniger wütend macht.

• With denn (coordinating conjunction, main clause word order):
  Mein Freund übt jeden Tag Gitarre, denn Musik macht ihn weniger wütend.

Denn does not send the verb to the end. It simply connects two main clauses and sounds slightly more formal or written. Both are correct; weil is more common in everyday speech for “because”.