Du scheinst den Lauch lieber fein hacken zu wollen, weil dir große Stücke nicht schmecken.

This is a very common German pattern.

• scheinen + zu + infinitive = to seem to do something
• wollen = to want to
• hacken = to chop

So:

• Du scheinst ... zu wollen = You seem to want ...
• Du scheinst den Lauch fein hacken zu wollen = You seem to want to chop the leek finely

German often puts the conjugated verb early and leaves the infinitives until the end.

Because when scheinen is followed by another infinitive that includes a modal verb like wollen, können, müssen, and so on, standard German usually puts zu before the modal verb.

So you get:

• hacken zu wollen = to want to chop
• gehen zu können = to be able to go
• bleiben zu müssen = to have to stay

For an English speaker, it may feel backwards, but this is the normal German pattern with these infinitive clusters.

Because Lauch is the direct object of hacken.

The base form is:

• der Lauch = nominative
• den Lauch = accusative

Since the sentence is about chopping the leek, the leek is the thing being chopped, so it takes the accusative case.

Here lieber means rather or preferably.

It is the comparative form related to gern, which is often used to express liking or preference with verbs.

So:

• Ich esse lieber Reis. = I’d rather eat rice.
• Du scheinst den Lauch lieber fein hacken zu wollen. = You seem to prefer chopping the leek finely.

It does not mean dearer here. It expresses preference.

In this sentence, fein is best understood as an adverb meaning finely.

So:

• fein hacken = to chop finely

That means fein tells you how the chopping is done.

A learner should usually read this as:

• hacken = the verb
• fein = the modifier

So the idea is simply to chop the leek into fine pieces.

Because schmecken works differently from the English verb to taste in many cases.

In German:

• etwas schmeckt jemandem = something tastes good/bad to someone

So in:

• große Stücke schmecken dir nicht

the grammar is:

• große Stücke = the subject
• dir = the person experiencing the taste

Literally, it is something like:

• large pieces do not taste good to you

Natural English would usually be:

• you don’t like big pieces
• or big pieces don’t taste good to you

If you said du schmeckst große Stücke, that would mean you taste large pieces in the sense of perceiving their taste, which is not the intended meaning here.

Because schmecken takes a dative person in this meaning.

So:

• Das schmeckt mir. = That tastes good to me.
• Das schmeckt dir nicht. = That doesn’t taste good to you.

Here, dir is the dative form of du.

This is similar to other German verbs where the person affected is in the dative:

• Das gefällt mir. = I like that.
• Das passt dir. = That suits you.

So dir is correct because German treats you as the experiencer, not as a direct object.

Because große Stücke is nominative plural here.

In the clause:

• weil dir große Stücke nicht schmecken

the subject is große Stücke.

Since there is no article before Stücke, the adjective takes the strong ending:

• nominative plural: große

So:

• große Stücke = large pieces

großen Stücke would be wrong here.

Because weil is a subordinating conjunction, and subordinating conjunctions send the conjugated verb to the end of the clause.

Compare:

Main clause:

• Große Stücke schmecken dir nicht.

Subordinate clause:

• ..., weil dir große Stücke nicht schmecken.

So the sentence has:

• main clause: Du scheinst ...
• subordinate clause introduced by weil: weil dir große Stücke nicht schmecken

This is one of the most important word-order rules in German.

It helps to split it into two parts.

Main clause:

• Du scheinst den Lauch lieber fein hacken zu wollen

Subordinate clause:

• weil dir große Stücke nicht schmecken

More literally, the main clause is arranged like this:

• Du = subject
• scheinst = conjugated verb in second position
• den Lauch = object
• lieber = preference
• fein hacken zu wollen = infinitive cluster at the end

So German is doing something like:

• You seem [the leek] [rather] [to want to chop finely], because ...

That may feel unusual in English, but it is very normal German word order.

In this sentence, nicht naturally comes before schmecken:

• weil dir große Stücke nicht schmecken

This negates the idea that the large pieces are pleasing in taste to you.

If you move nicht, the emphasis can change, and some positions may sound unnatural. For learners, the safest pattern is:

• subject / other elements + nicht
  • verb at the end

So here the sentence is perfectly natural as written.

Yes, it can imply more than pure taste.

German schmecken often covers what English speakers might sometimes express more loosely with:

• I don’t like it
• it doesn’t taste good
• I don’t like it in big pieces

In a food context like this, the speaker may dislike the flavor, the mouthfeel, or simply the experience of eating larger pieces. So the sentence can sound broader than a very strict English taste translation.