How Children Learn German
A bit of background just so we’re talking about the same thing…
Key
S: subject
V: verb
O: object
Everybody who learns German struggles with the idea that verbs go at the end (SOV). So how do children do it?
As an adult you learn to say:
Ich sehe einen Hund (SVO)
But a child will say (because they don’t know about conjugating verbs)
Ich einen Hund sehen (SOV)
i.e. that’s the natural way for a German toddler to learn to speak.
The only reason why it seems like a minority of sentences are SOV is because of the way they teach German. You don’t learn German like a native speaker. Instead you are presented simple SVO sentences in the beginning, and don’t move onto the SOV ones until the end of your first year.
German-speaking children actually, by default, start speaking in SOV sentences with no verb conjugations.
Around the time German-speaking children learn verb conjugations, they move their conjugated verb to the second position, and in dependent clauses they leave it at the end.
If this interests you, you can read this: https://www.quora.com/Do-linguists-know-why-or-how-verbs-came-to-be-placed-at-the-end-of-some-sentences-in-German
Join this Facebook group — Mums Learn German Berlin https://www.facebook.com/groups/244738226033864/members/
Study German in Berlin with Pattern Hunters — languagegym.net
