Wenn keine Erdbeeren da sind, nimmt meine Freundin lieber Himbeeren oder Blaubeeren.

Wenn means if or whenever here. It introduces a subordinate clause, and in German that sends the conjugated verb to the end of that clause.

So:

• Wenn keine Erdbeeren da sind = If there are no strawberries
• The verb sind goes to the end because of wenn.

A useful pattern is:

• Wenn + ... + verb, main clause + verb second

That is why the second part is:

• nimmt meine Freundin lieber Himbeeren oder Blaubeeren

with nimmt coming first in the main clause.

German usually uses kein to negate nouns that do not have a definite article.

• Erdbeeren here means strawberries in a general sense, with no article.
• So the correct negation is keine Erdbeeren = no strawberries / not any strawberries

Compare:

• Ich habe Erdbeeren. = I have strawberries.
• Ich habe keine Erdbeeren. = I have no strawberries / I don’t have any strawberries.

Nicht is used more often to negate verbs, adjectives, adverbs, or more specific parts of a sentence.

In this sentence, da sein is a common expression meaning to be there, to be available, or to be present.

So:

• Wenn keine Erdbeeren da sind means If there are no strawberries available / there

This is very natural German when talking about whether something is in stock, present, or around.

Examples:

• Ist noch Milch da? = Is there still milk?
• Kein Brot ist mehr da. = There’s no bread left.

So da is not just random filler; it helps express availability.

Because the sentence begins with the wenn-clause, that whole clause takes up the first position in the sentence. In German main clauses, the conjugated verb must be in second position.

So the structure is:

1. Wenn keine Erdbeeren da sind
2. nimmt
3. meine Freundin ...

That is why you get:

• Wenn keine Erdbeeren da sind, nimmt meine Freundin ...

and not:

• Wenn keine Erdbeeren da sind, meine Freundin nimmt ...

A simple rule:

• If something other than the subject comes first, the verb still stays in position 2, and the subject usually comes after it.

Lieber means preferably, rather, or more willingly.

In this sentence:

• nimmt meine Freundin lieber Himbeeren oder Blaubeeren
• = my girlfriend prefers to take raspberries or blueberries

It shows preference between options.

You will often see:

• Ich trinke lieber Tee. = I prefer tea.
• Sie bleibt lieber zu Hause. = She prefers to stay at home.

So lieber is the adverb form used to express preference.

Lieber is an adverb, and adverbs in German often come before the element they modify or before the part of the sentence they are emphasizing.

Here it modifies the choice of fruit:

• nimmt ... lieber Himbeeren oder Blaubeeren
• = prefers raspberries or blueberries

Its placement is natural and idiomatic. You could think of it as attaching to the whole idea of taking raspberries or blueberries instead.

Because the speaker is talking about these fruits in a general, indefinite sense, not specific berries.

So:

• Himbeeren oder Blaubeeren = raspberries or blueberries

This is similar to English, where you would also usually say raspberries or blueberries, not the raspberries or the blueberries, unless you mean specific ones.

If you wanted to refer to specific berries, you might use articles:

• die Himbeeren
• die Blaubeeren

But here the general bare plural is the natural choice.

They are all in the accusative plural, because they function as the objects of nimmt in the broader meaning of what is being taken/chosen.

In plural, many German nouns look the same in nominative and accusative, so the form Erdbeeren / Himbeeren / Blaubeeren does not change.

You can mainly recognize the case here from the sentence structure and from keine:

• keine Erdbeeren = accusative plural here

Also:

• meine Freundin is the subject, so it is nominative.
• The fruits are what she takes/chooses, so they are the object.

Yes, nimmt literally means takes, from nehmen. But in German, nehmen is often used in situations where English might say have, choose, get, or take depending on context.

Here it can imply something like:

• she takes
• she chooses
• she goes for

So even if English might translate it more freely as she prefers raspberries or blueberries, the German with nimmt is very natural.

In this sentence, if is the best translation.

• Wenn keine Erdbeeren da sind = If there are no strawberries available

But wenn can also mean when in other contexts, especially for repeated events:

• Wenn ich Zeit habe, lese ich. = When(ever) I have time, I read.

So wenn often covers both if and when/whenever, and the exact meaning depends on context.

Yes, falls is possible, but it changes the nuance slightly.

• wenn = neutral if/when
• falls = more specifically in case / if it happens that

So:

• Falls keine Erdbeeren da sind, nimmt meine Freundin lieber Himbeeren oder Blaubeeren.

This sounds a bit more like planning for a possibility. The original wenn is more neutral and very common.

Because in German, a subordinate clause is separated from the main clause by a comma.

Here:

• Wenn keine Erdbeeren da sind, = subordinate clause
• nimmt meine Freundin lieber Himbeeren oder Blaubeeren. = main clause

German comma rules are stricter than English ones in this area, so this comma is required.

Yes. Meine Freundin can mean either:

• my girlfriend
• my female friend

German does not always distinguish between those two clearly in the noun phrase alone. The exact meaning depends on context.

If someone wants to make it very clear they mean a platonic female friend, they may still say meine Freundin, but context usually clears it up. English forces a distinction more often than German does.

Yes. It shows a very common German pattern:

• subordinate clause first
• then verb first in the main clause
• then subject

So the full structure is:

• Wenn keine Erdbeeren da sind,
• nimmt
• meine Freundin
• lieber Himbeeren oder Blaubeeren.

This is one of the most important German word-order patterns to get used to. The key point is:

• the verb in the main clause is still second, even if the first “slot” is occupied by a whole clause.