Breakdown of Nach dem Sturz tut ihm das Bein weh.
Questions & Answers about Nach dem Sturz tut ihm das Bein weh.
In tut ihm das Bein weh, ihm is in the dative case.
German often uses the dative to mark the person who is affected by something, especially with verbs about pain, possession, or feelings:
- Mir ist kalt. – I am cold. (literally: To me is cold.)
- Mir tut der Kopf weh. – My head hurts. (literally: To me hurts the head.)
In your sentence:
- ihm = to him (dative)
- das Bein = the leg (nominative subject)
So literally: To him the leg hurts.
That’s why it must be ihm, not er (nominative) or ihn (accusative).
The grammatical subject is das Bein.
Structure:
- Nach dem Sturz – prepositional phrase (time)
- tut – verb (3rd person singular)
- ihm – dative pronoun (person affected)
- das Bein – subject (nominative)
- weh – part of the verb wehtun
That’s why the verb is tut (singular), matching das Bein:
- Ihm tut das Bein weh. – His leg hurts.
- Ihm tun die Beine weh. – His legs hurt. (Plural Beine, so tun.)
Wehtun is a verb that is usually written as one word in dictionaries:
- Infinitive: wehtun
- es tut weh – it hurts
- es tat weh – it hurt
- es hat wehgetan – it has hurt / it hurt
In the present tense, it splits:
- Das Bein tut ihm weh.
- Der Rücken tut mir weh.
So in tut ihm das Bein weh, tut … weh together is the verb, and das Bein is the subject of that verb. Weh is not a free adjective here; it’s part of the verb wehtun.
German does not use sein (to be) to express “to hurt / be sore”. Instead, it uses the verb wehtun:
- Das Bein tut ihm weh. – His leg hurts.
Not: Das Bein ist ihm weh.
Using sein here would be incorrect. If you want to use an adjective, you choose a different construction, for example:
- Sein Bein ist verletzt. – His leg is injured.
- Sein Bein ist wund. – His leg is sore/raw.
But when you mean “hurts”, the standard way is wehtun.
Yes, you can, but there is a nuance:
Nach dem Sturz tut ihm das Bein weh.
- literally: After the fall, the leg hurts to him.
- Focus on the person affected (dative ihm).
- Very natural and idiomatic when talking about how someone feels.
Nach dem Sturz tut sein Bein weh.
- literally: After the fall, his leg hurts.
- Uses a possessive pronoun (sein Bein) and no dative pronoun.
- Also grammatically correct and understandable.
In everyday speech about pain, Germans tend to prefer the dative-person + body part with article pattern:
- Mir tut der Arm weh.
- Ihr tut der Bauch weh.
So ihm … das Bein is the more typical pattern here.
Two things are happening:
The noun Sturz has gender masculine:
- der Sturz – the fall
The preposition nach always takes the dative case (for location/time meanings).
The dative singular of a masculine noun with the article der is dem.
So:
- Nominative: der Sturz
- Accusative: den Sturz
- Dative: dem Sturz ← required after nach
Therefore Nach dem Sturz is correct: After the fall.
German has a verb-second rule: in a main clause, the finite verb must be in second position.
If you start with Nach dem Sturz (a time phrase), then the verb must come next:
- Nach dem Sturz (position 1) tut (position 2) ihm das Bein weh.
You can absolutely also say:
- Das Bein tut ihm nach dem Sturz weh.
- Ihm tut nach dem Sturz das Bein weh.
These all obey the verb-second rule; you’re just moving the other elements around. Word order like this mainly changes emphasis, not basic meaning. Starting with Nach dem Sturz emphasizes the time frame: After the fall (as opposed to before it)…
Both are grammatically possible:
- Nach dem Sturz tut ihm das Bein weh.
- Nach dem Sturz tut das Bein ihm weh.
But the more natural and common order is:
- Verb
- Short pronouns (like ihm, mir, dir, ihn)
- Full noun phrases (like das Bein, der Arm, mein Kopf)
So: tut + ihm + das Bein + weh.
General tendency in the middle of the sentence:
- pronoun (dative) → pronoun (accusative) → nouns
Example:
- Der Arzt gibt ihm das Rezept. (not so often: gibt das Rezept ihm)
- Sie zeigt mir den Weg.
So tut ihm das Bein weh sounds more idiomatic than tut das Bein ihm weh, even though both are correct.
All can express pain, but they differ in style and typical usage:
tut weh / wehtun – most common, everyday, natural
- Nach dem Sturz tut ihm das Bein weh.
- Mein Rücken tut weh.
schmerzt – more formal / written / medical-sounding
- Nach dem Sturz schmerzt sein Bein.
- Die Wunde schmerzt.
hat Schmerzen – literally “has pains”, also a bit more formal or clinical
- Nach dem Sturz hat er Schmerzen im Bein.
- Der Patient hat starke Schmerzen.
For normal spoken German, tut weh is the default choice.
Pattern:
- [Dative person] + tut/tun + [body part, nominative] + weh
Singular body part → tut
Plural body parts → tun
Examples:
- Mir tut der Kopf weh. – My head hurts.
- Dir tut der Rücken weh. – Your back hurts.
- Ihm tut das Bein weh. – His leg hurts.
- Ihr tut der Bauch weh. – Her stomach hurts.
- Uns tun die Füße weh. – Our feet hurt.
- Ihnen tun die Augen weh. – Their / your (formal) eyes hurt.
Note how the verb changes with der Kopf (singular: tut) vs. die Füße (plural: tun).
Der Sturz usually means a fall, especially a sudden, often painful one:
- Er hat einen Sturz von der Leiter gemacht. – He had a fall from the ladder.
- Nach dem Sturz tut ihm das Bein weh. – After the fall, his leg hurts.
It can also mean a crash / plunge / drop in some contexts:
- der Sturz eines Flugzeugs – the crash of an airplane
- der Sturz der Preise – the drop in prices
In your sentence, it clearly refers to a physical fall (someone fell, and then their leg hurts).
Use the Perfekt of wehtun: hat wehgetan.
Present:
- Nach dem Sturz tut ihm das Bein weh. – After the fall, his leg hurts.
You can talk about a later time looking back on it:
- Nach dem Sturz hat ihm das Bein wehgetan.
– After the fall, his leg hurt. / His leg was hurting after the fall.
Structure stays the same; only tut … weh becomes hat wehgetan:
- Nach dem Sturz – time phrase
- hat – auxiliary (3rd person singular)
- ihm – dative person
- das Bein – subject
- wehgetan – past participle of wehtun.