A lot German learners think of ob as if.But it’s not that simple. In this week’s Wort der Woche post on the word als, I touched upon the distinction between the words als, wenn, wann.. I’d like to explore the issue further and give a simple Q & A procedure for learners to follow to figure out which word to choose.

It can be confusing, since in English we use the words "when" and "if" to express all of these ideas. Sätze mit als ob werden deshalb auch als „irreale Vergleichssätze“ bzw. Beispiel: Er sieht heute schlecht aus.

„irreale Komparationssätze“ bezeichnet . Wenn and falls share common ground but ob is totally different. If has three possible translations in German: wenn, falls and ob. Standardsprachlich steht in Sätzen mit als ob der Konjunktiv II. Er sieht heute so schlecht aus, als ob er die ganze Nacht nicht geschlafen hätte. Use als when you are talking about a general time in the past: for example, " Als ich kind war... (When I was a child...)." This can sometimes be confusing for language learners. When English speakers want to say “when” in German, it’s hard to know which word to choose.

These conjunctions can sometimes be tricky because in English they could all translate as “when” or “if/whether”.

Now you might be like “But people will still be able to understand me, when I make a mistake there, right?” The answer is no. In these exercises, you must decide whether to use als, wenn, wann or ob. German Grammar Explained / Wann, wenn, falls, als, ob.