Breakdown of Nach dem Unfall fühle ich mich genervt, aber auch dankbar, dass niemand ernsthaft verletzt wurde.
Questions & Answers about Nach dem Unfall fühle ich mich genervt, aber auch dankbar, dass niemand ernsthaft verletzt wurde.
In German, emotional or physical states with fühlen are normally expressed with the reflexive verb sich fühlen + adjective:
- Ich fühle mich genervt. = I feel annoyed.
- Ich fühle mich müde. = I feel tired.
- Ich fühle mich krank. = I feel ill.
Without the reflexive pronoun, fühlen usually means “to feel (something) with your senses”:
- Ich fühle die Kälte. = I feel the cold.
- Fühlst du den Wind? = Do you feel the wind?
So in this sentence, we are talking about an inner state, so German uses ich fühle mich genervt, not ich fühle genervt.
German main clauses follow the verb‑second rule: the conjugated verb must be the second element in the sentence.
In your sentence:
- Nach dem Unfall = first element (a prepositional phrase, acting as a time adverbial)
- fühle = second element (the conjugated verb)
- ich = third element (the subject)
- mich genervt, aber auch dankbar, … = rest of the sentence
If you put ich right after Nach dem Unfall, the verb fühle would no longer be in second position, which is ungrammatical in a main clause:
- ❌ Nach dem Unfall ich fühle mich … (verb is 3rd position)
- ✔ Nach dem Unfall fühle ich mich … (verb is 2nd position)
If you don’t start with the time phrase, you can of course say:
- ✔ Ich fühle mich nach dem Unfall genervt, …
Two things are at work here:
The preposition
- nach (in the sense of “after”) always takes the dative case.
The noun’s gender and case
- Unfall is masculine: der Unfall in the nominative singular.
- Masculine dative singular of the definite article is dem.
So:
- nach
- dative
- der Unfall (nom.) → dem Unfall (dat.)
- Result: nach dem Unfall = after the accident.
Nach den Unfall would be dative plural (den) plus a singular noun (Unfall), so it’s incorrect here.
Nach der Unfall uses the feminine article (der as feminine dative), but Unfall is masculine, not feminine.
Genervt is the past participle of nerven (“to annoy, to get on someone’s nerves”). As an adjective, genervt describes someone’s emotional state:
- Ich bin genervt. = I am annoyed / irritated.
- Sie wirkt genervt. = She seems annoyed.
In fühle ich mich genervt, genervt is an adjective describing how the speaker feels. This pattern is very common:
- Ich fühle mich müde / entspannt / nervös / genervt.
So the form genervt is used like an adjective, even though it comes from a participle. It roughly corresponds to English “annoyed” (not “annoying”).
- aber = but
- auch = also
Together, aber auch corresponds to “but also” in English.
The structure is:
- Ich fühle mich genervt, aber auch dankbar …
= I feel annoyed, but also thankful …
This emphasizes that both feelings coexist:
- Feeling 1: genervt
- Feeling 2: dankbar
If you said only:
- … fühle ich mich genervt, aber dankbar …
it would be more like “annoyed, but thankful” (contrast without highlighting the “also”). - … fühle ich mich auch dankbar …
would be odd without something clear to contrast with.
Aber auch is a very natural way in German to express “but also X (in addition to what I just said)”.
Dass introduces a subordinate clause that gives the content or reason for the feeling of thankfulness:
- … dankbar, dass niemand ernsthaft verletzt wurde.
= “… thankful (for the fact) that nobody was seriously injured.”
So the structure is:
- Main clause: Nach dem Unfall fühle ich mich genervt, aber auch dankbar
- Subordinate clause with dass: dass niemand ernsthaft verletzt wurde
In English we often also use “that” in exactly this way:
- I’m thankful that nobody was seriously hurt.
Other conjunctions like weil (because), wenn (if / when), ob (whether) would change the meaning, so dass is the correct choice here.
Because dass introduces a subordinate clause, and in German subordinate clauses have the conjugated verb at the end.
Word order inside the clause:
- niemand = subject
- ernsthaft = adverb
- verletzt = past participle
- wurde = conjugated auxiliary (passive) → goes to the end
So we get:
- dass niemand ernsthaft verletzt wurde
In a main clause, the verb would be in second position:
- Niemand wurde ernsthaft verletzt. (main clause, verb = 2nd position)
- …, dass niemand ernsthaft verletzt wurde. (subordinate clause, verb complex at the end)
Niemand is an indefinite pronoun meaning “nobody / no one”. In German it is grammatically singular, so it takes a singular verb:
- Niemand wurde verletzt. = Nobody was injured.
- Niemand hat das gesehen. = Nobody saw that.
This is similar to English, where we also normally use singular verbs with “nobody / no one”:
- Nobody was hurt. (not “were hurt” in standard English)
Ernsthaft is an adverb meaning “seriously”, and it modifies the adjective/participle verletzt (“injured”). Together:
- ernsthaft verletzt = seriously injured.
The pattern is:
- adverb (ernsthaft) + adjective/participle (verletzt)
Ernst and ernsthaft are related, but used differently:
- ernst is usually an adjective (“serious”):
- ein ernster Unfall = a serious accident
- ernsthaft is usually an adverb (“seriously”):
- jemand ist ernsthaft verletzt = someone is seriously injured
Ernste verletzt is wrong because ernste would be an adjective form that expects a noun (e.g. ernste Verletzungen = serious injuries), but verletzt here is not a noun; it’s the participle used like an adjective.
Both are grammatically possible but not identical:
- niemand war verletzt = nobody was injured (focus more on the resulting state)
- niemand wurde verletzt = nobody got / was injured (passive of verletzen, focusing more on the event that could have caused injury)
In the context of an accident, niemand wurde verletzt is the standard, idiomatic way to say “nobody was injured” (as a result of that event). It’s the passive voice of:
- Jemand verletzte niemanden. (active; someone injured nobody – nonsensical, but grammatically the base)
- → Niemand wurde verletzt. (passive; nobody was injured)
So in:
- dass niemand ernsthaft verletzt wurde
we’re using the event‑passive (Vorgangspassiv), which is the normal choice for “X was injured / hurt” in accident reports.
Both forms are possible and correct; the choice is mostly about style and region:
- niemand wurde verletzt (Präteritum passive)
- niemand ist verletzt worden (Perfekt passive)
In written German, especially in narratives or reports, the simple past (Präteritum) is very common for sein, haben, werden, and modal verbs. That’s why wurde verletzt sounds very natural in a sentence summarizing what happened in an accident.
Using ist verletzt worden would put more focus on the result up to now, but in everyday usage, especially in writing, wurde verletzt is the standard, compact way to say “was injured.” Both forms would be understood in this sentence.