Breakdown of Es kommt darauf an, ob die Sache eilig ist.
Questions & Answers about Es kommt darauf an, ob die Sache eilig ist.
In Es kommt darauf an, ob ..., Es is a “dummy” or placeholder subject (like English it in It depends on ...). It usually doesn’t refer to a specific noun; it just fills the subject position because German finite verbs normally need an explicit subject in main clauses.
So Es kommt darauf an = It depends (on it) / It depends.
darauf is a pronominal adverb: da- + auf. It stands for auf + something (i.e., on that / on it).
The expression auf etw. ankommen means to depend on something / to hinge on something. When the “something” is a clause (like ob ...), German often uses darauf to point forward to that clause.
It’s not really “split from the verb” in the separable-verb sense; rather, ankommen is the verb, and auf ... is the required prepositional element. In this idiom, that element is realized as darauf.
Because ankommen is a separable-prefix verb (an-kommen). In a main clause with a simple tense, the prefix an goes to the end:
- Es kommt darauf an.
In subordinate clauses, it stays attached:
- ..., weil es darauf ankommt.
Because ob die Sache eilig ist is a subordinate clause, and German requires a comma before subordinate clauses. Here the ob-clause functions like the thing it “depends on,” so it’s set off with a comma:
- Es kommt darauf an, ob ...
ob introduces an indirect yes/no question and means whether/if (in the sense of “whether”). It presents alternatives: urgent or not urgent.
wenn means if/when in a conditional or temporal sense.
With Es kommt darauf an, ob ..., you normally use ob, because it’s about whether something is the case:
- It depends on whether the matter is urgent.
Using wenn would change the meaning toward a condition/time frame and would not fit the standard “depends whether” structure.
Because ob introduces a subordinate clause, and in German subordinate clauses the conjugated verb goes at the end:
- ob
- subject
- (other elements) + finite verb
So: ob die Sache eilig ist.
- (other elements) + finite verb
- subject
die Sache is nominative because it is the subject of the subordinate clause ob die Sache eilig ist.
You can tell because it agrees with the verb ist (and because sein takes a nominative subject).
Here eilig is an adjective used predicatively after sein: X ist eilig = X is urgent.
Predicative adjectives in German do not take endings, so it stays eilig, not eilige.
You’d see endings when the adjective comes before a noun:
- eine eilige Sache = an urgent matter
Literally it’s the matter / the affair / the thing, but idiomatically die Sache is very common for “the matter/issue” in a broad, everyday sense. It can refer to a task, topic, situation, or problem depending on context.
No, that would be ungrammatical in this meaning. The verb is auf etw. ankommen; the auf-part must be expressed. When what follows is a clause, German typically uses darauf:
- Es kommt darauf an, ob ... (standard)
You can sometimes replace it with a full noun phrase:
- Es kommt auf die Frage an, ob ...
But you can’t simply drop the auf ... element.
You can front the subordinate clause (less common stylistically, but possible). Then the main clause follows with inversion (verb-second rule):
- Ob die Sache eilig ist, darauf kommt es an.
(= Whether it’s urgent—that’s what it depends on.)
You could also do:
- Ob die Sache eilig ist, kommt darauf an.
…but that sounds incomplete because German expects es as the subject; the first version is more natural.
Yes, it most often corresponds to It depends. Common variants include:
- Es kommt darauf an, ob/wie/wer/was ... = It depends on whether/how/who/what ...
- Das kommt darauf an. = That depends.
- Es kommt darauf an, worauf du Wert legst. = It depends on what you value / what matters to you.