Breakdown of Dass du mir deinen Pullover geliehen hast, finde ich sehr nett.
Questions & Answers about Dass du mir deinen Pullover geliehen hast, finde ich sehr nett.
Dass is a subordinating conjunction meaning that (introducing a clause, not the demonstrative pronoun das).
In this sentence, the dass-clause is being used as the subject of the sentence:
- Dass du mir deinen Pullover geliehen hast = That you lent me your jumper
- finde ich sehr nett = I find (that) very nice
More literally:
Dass du mir deinen Pullover geliehen hast, finde ich sehr nett.
= That you lent me your jumper, I find very nice.
In English we normally say instead:
I think it’s really nice that you lent me your jumper.
So German allows a full dass-clause to stand at the beginning as the subject much more easily than English does.
It is a subordinate clause (in German: Nebensatz) introduced by dass.
Functionally, it is a subject clause:
- Wer oder was finde ich sehr nett? → Dass du mir deinen Pullover geliehen hast.
(What do I find very nice? → That you lent me your jumper.)
So the structure is:
- Subordinate clause (subject): Dass du mir deinen Pullover geliehen hast
- Main clause (predicate and complement): finde ich sehr nett
In German subordinate clauses, the conjugated verb goes to the end of the clause.
The verb here is in the Perfekt (present perfect) tense, which consists of:
- an auxiliary (here: hast) and
- a past participle (here: geliehen)
Word order rules:
In a main clause: auxiliary is in 2nd position, participle at the end
- Du hast mir deinen Pullover geliehen.
In a subordinate clause: both parts of the verb group go to the end, but the auxiliary is last:
- …, dass du mir deinen Pullover geliehen hast.
So geliehen hast is exactly what we expect in a dass-clause.
In German, you must put a comma between a subordinate clause and a main clause.
- Subordinate clause: Dass du mir deinen Pullover geliehen hast
- Main clause: finde ich sehr nett
Rule:
Subordinate clause, main clause → always with a comma.
So the comma is required by German punctuation rules to separate the two clauses.
German main clauses normally follow the verb-second (V2) rule: the conjugated verb must appear in position 2 of the clause.
Here, the entire dass-clause comes first in the overall sentence. That counts as position 1. The main clause that follows the comma must then start with the verb in position 2:
- Position 1: Dass du mir deinen Pullover geliehen hast
- Position 2: finde
- Then comes the subject: ich
- Then the rest: sehr nett
So we get:
Dass du mir deinen Pullover geliehen hast, finde ich sehr nett.
If you start with Ich, the order changes:
- Ich finde es sehr nett, dass du mir deinen Pullover geliehen hast.
(Here Ich is position 1, finde is position 2.)
Yes, that’s a very natural and very common version, and many speakers would actually prefer it in everyday conversation:
- Ich finde es sehr nett, dass du mir deinen Pullover geliehen hast.
Here:
- Ich = subject
- finde = verb (2nd position)
- es = dummy or placeholder object (like English it)
- dass du mir deinen Pullover geliehen hast = object clause explaining what es refers to
In your original sentence, the dass-clause itself is the subject. In the alternative, es is the grammatical object and the dass-clause is more like a content clause attached to it.
Both are correct.
- The original puts more emphasis on the whole situation (“that you lent me your jumper”).
- The Ich finde es… version is stylistically a bit more neutral and very typical in spoken German.
mir is dative, while mich is accusative.
The verb leihen (to lend) typically follows this pattern:
- jemandem etwas leihen
= to lend somebody something
= dative (receiver) + accusative (thing lent)
In your sentence:
- du = subject (nominative)
- mir = indirect object (dative, the person who receives the jumper)
- deinen Pullover = direct object (accusative, the thing lent)
So mir is correct because it answers Wem hast du den Pullover geliehen? (To whom did you lend the jumper?)
deinen Pullover is accusative masculine singular.
- The noun Pullover is masculine in German: der Pullover.
- In the accusative masculine, the possessive dein gets an extra -en: deinen.
Declension pattern for dein (singular):
- Nominative masculine: dein Pullover (subject)
- Accusative masculine: deinen Pullover (direct object)
Since deinen Pullover is the direct object of geliehen hast, it has to be in accusative case, hence deinen.
geliehen hast is the Perfekt (present perfect) form of leihen.
- Perfekt: du hast geliehen
- Präteritum (simple past): du liehest / du lieh (in practice: du lieh)
In spoken German, for most verbs (especially non-modal verbs such as leihen), the Perfekt is much more common than the Präteritum. You’d mainly see lieh in written narratives or literary style.
So in everyday speech, people naturally say:
- Du hast mir deinen Pullover geliehen. (spoken, normal)
rather than - Du liehst mir deinen Pullover. (more written / literary).
Not in this sentence.
In a main clause, the order is: finite verb in position 2, participle at the end:
- Du hast mir deinen Pullover geliehen.
In a subordinate clause introduced by dass, all the verb parts go to the end of the clause, and the finite verb is last:
- …, dass du mir deinen Pullover geliehen hast.
So in your sentence, because Dass du mir deinen Pullover geliehen hast is a subordinate clause, the only correct order is geliehen hast, not hast geliehen.
In your sentence we have dass with ss, which is:
- a subordinating conjunction meaning that (introducing a clause)
das with one s can be:
- a definite article: das Haus (the house)
- a demonstrative pronoun: Das ist gut. (That is good.)
- a relative pronoun: Das Haus, das ich gekauft habe… (The house that I bought…)
Very rough rule of thumb:
- If you can replace it with “dieses / jenes / welches”, it should be das.
- If it introduces a subordinate clause (like that in “I think that…”), it’s usually dass.
In Dass du mir deinen Pullover geliehen hast, finde ich sehr nett, it introduces a clause → dass is correct.
nett can mean both nice and kind, and often overlaps with both:
- Das ist sehr nett von dir.
= That’s very nice/kind of you.
Alternatives, depending on nuance:
- lieb – often “sweet / really kind / dear” (more emotional, affectionate)
- freundlich – “friendly, courteous” (a bit more formal or neutral)
- großzügig – “generous” (specifically about generosity)
Your sentence:
- … finde ich sehr nett.
would typically be understood as:
- I think that’s really nice/kind (of you).
Yes, Pullover is the standard German word for jumper / sweater.
- der Pullover – neutral, standard
- der Pulli – colloquial, shortened form
- der Sweater – exists but is much less common; Pullover is the default.
So deinen Pullover is exactly what you’d normally say for your jumper / your sweater.