Breakdown of Könnten Sie mir bitte sagen, ob Ihr Schwager im Oktober kommen kann oder ob er arbeiten muss?
Questions & Answers about Könnten Sie mir bitte sagen, ob Ihr Schwager im Oktober kommen kann oder ob er arbeiten muss?
Könnten Sie ... is the more polite, softer form.
- Können Sie ...? = Can you ...?
- Könnten Sie ...? = Could you ...?
German often uses Konjunktiv II forms like könnten to make requests sound less direct and more courteous. In a sentence like this, that is exactly the effect.
So:
- Können Sie mir sagen ...? = polite
- Könnten Sie mir bitte sagen ...? = even more polite and more natural in many formal situations
Also, Sie shows that the speaker is addressing someone formally.
Mir means to me and is in the dative case.
The verb pattern is:
- jemandem etwas sagen = to tell someone something
So:
- mir sagen = tell me
- Ihm sagen = tell him
- uns sagen = tell us
Even though English often just says tell me, German shows the someone part with the dative pronoun:
- Könnten Sie mir bitte sagen ... = Could you please tell me ...
Both are capitalized because they are formal forms of you.
- Sie = formal you
- Ihr = formal your
This is different from:
- sie = she or they
- ihr = her or their, depending on context
So Ihr Schwager here means your brother-in-law in a formal sense.
A useful contrast:
- Kannst du mir sagen, ob dein Schwager ... = informal, talking to one person you know well
- Könnten Sie mir sagen, ob Ihr Schwager ... = formal
Because ob introduces a subordinate clause, and German normally separates subordinate clauses with commas.
The main clause is:
- Könnten Sie mir bitte sagen ...
Then comes the subordinate clause:
- ob Ihr Schwager im Oktober kommen kann ...
So the comma marks the boundary between the main clause and the subordinate clause.
This is very normal in German. English often uses fewer commas in similar sentences, so this is something English speakers often need to get used to.
Here ob means whether / if in an indirect yes-no question.
The speaker is not asking for a detailed explanation yet; they are asking which of two possibilities is true:
- Can he come?
- Or does he have to work?
That is exactly what ob introduces.
Compare:
- Ich weiß nicht, ob er kommt. = I don’t know whether he is coming.
- Sag mir, ob er kommen kann. = Tell me whether he can come.
Why not the others?
- wenn usually means if/when in conditions or repeated situations
- dass means that
So:
- ob = whether
- wenn = if/when
- dass = that
Because these are subordinate clauses, and in German subordinate clauses the conjugated verb goes to the end.
In a main clause, you would say:
- Er kann im Oktober kommen.
- Er muss arbeiten.
But after ob, the clause becomes subordinate, so the verb moves to the end:
- ..., ob er im Oktober kommen kann
- ..., ob er arbeiten muss
With a modal verb, German puts:
- the main verb in the infinitive
- then the modal verb at the very end
So:
- kommen kann
- arbeiten muss
This is one of the most important word-order patterns in German.
German often repeats ob to make the two alternatives very clear:
- ob Ihr Schwager im Oktober kommen kann
- oder ob er arbeiten muss
This is similar to English whether ... or whether ...
The repetition is very natural and clear in formal or careful German.
You may also hear a shorter version:
- ..., ob Ihr Schwager im Oktober kommen kann oder arbeiten muss
That is also possible, especially when the meaning is obvious. But repeating ob sounds especially neat and explicit.
Im is a contraction of in dem.
- in dem → im
German months are nouns, and Oktober is masculine:
- der Oktober
For time expressions like in October, German commonly uses:
- im Oktober
- im Januar
- im Sommer
So im Oktober is the standard way to say in October.
Grammatically, this is a dative time expression after in.
Schwager means brother-in-law.
It is a general family term and can refer to more than one relationship, for example:
- your spouse’s brother
- your sibling’s husband
German usually does not make separate everyday words for those different kinds of brother-in-law.
The feminine form is:
- Schwägerin = sister-in-law
That is a very natural position for bitte in a polite request.
In German, words like mir and bitte often appear in the middle field of the sentence, and short pronouns such as mir usually come very early. So:
- Könnten Sie mir bitte sagen ...
sounds very natural.
If you move bitte, the sentence may still be grammatical, but the rhythm can sound less natural:
- Bitte, könnten Sie mir sagen ... = possible, but more marked
- Könnten Sie bitte mir sagen ... = possible in theory, but less natural than mir bitte
So the given order is a very common and idiomatic one.
It could theoretically express several ideas, because können is a broad modal verb. But in this sentence it most naturally means something like be able to / be free to / be available to come.
So ob Ihr Schwager im Oktober kommen kann is not usually about physical ability. It is more about whether his circumstances allow it.
In context, the second option makes that clear:
- ... oder ob er arbeiten muss
So the contrast is really:
- Is he free to come in October?
- Or does he have to work?
Yes. Ihr Schwager is the subject, and it is in the nominative case.
You can see this by asking:
- Who can come?
- Who has to work?
Answer:
- Ihr Schwager
So in both subordinate clauses, Ihr Schwager is the person doing the action:
- Ihr Schwager ... kommen kann
- er arbeiten muss
In the second clause, er replaces Ihr Schwager to avoid repetition.