Breakdown of Dass du mir deinen Pullover geliehen hast, finde ich sehr nett.
ich
I
du
you
haben
to have
sehr
very
Questions & Answers about Dass du mir deinen Pullover geliehen hast, finde ich sehr nett.
Why does the sentence start with Dass?
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.
What kind of clause is Dass du mir deinen Pullover geliehen hast?
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