Kannst du den Rollladen herunterziehen?

you

Breakdown of Kannst du den Rollladen herunterziehen?

• können: can
• den: the; (masculine, accusative)
• der Rollladen: the shutter

Questions & Answers about Kannst du den Rollladen herunterziehen?

Why does the sentence start with Kannst instead of du?

Because this is a yes/no question in German.

In a normal statement, the finite verb usually comes in second position:

• Du kannst den Rollladen herunterziehen.
  = You can pull down the shutter.

In a yes/no question, the finite verb moves to first position:

• Kannst du den Rollladen herunterziehen?

So the pattern is:

• Verb + subject + rest of sentence

This is very similar to English Can you ...?

Why is it den Rollladen and not der Rollladen?

Because Rollladen is the direct object of the verb, so it is in the accusative case.

The noun Rollladen is masculine:

• nominative: der Rollladen
• accusative: den Rollladen

Here, the person is doing something to the shutter, so German uses the accusative:

• Kannst du den Rollladen herunterziehen?

A useful way to think about it:

• der Rollladen = the shutter as the subject
• den Rollladen = the shutter as the thing affected by the action

What exactly does Rollladen mean?