When people learn a foreign language, it is not always natural to them what order of words to use, so the sentence that they make can sound a bit weird for a native speaker of that language. In German language, that mistake can hardly happen because there are strict rules for positions of verbs in sentences. They are almost always in the second position in the sentence. I will mention some of the cases where they come to the other position, but it is in more complicated sentences, so for anybody in the beginning of learning, just remember it comes second! 😃

Let's see some examples:

I learn German. ------- Ich lerne Deutsch.

Here it may seem obvious, because in English it also goes the same way, so it is translation word by word.

My mom never talks bad about me. ------ Meine Mutter redet nie schlecht über mich.

Here, in English we would have a couple of words before the verb. In German, the verb has to go to the second position!

When we say second position, it means, not necessarily second word, but second structure in the sentence.

Here we have meine Mutter as one structure, it is all a subject and it would be impossible to split it to parts. So we write it as such, and then verb redet comes to second place and everything else goes after. There are some rules about where to put other words, but they will come naturally while learning. It is most important to remember this rule for verbs now!

Your dog is good. ----- Dein Hund ist gut.

Here we again have a subject (your dog) dein Hund that goes to first position and then comes the verb ist in second position.

Examples where the verb isn't in the second position:

It will always be when there are some more complicated structures in the sentences, where there are usually a couple of verbs in them.

1. when we have BUT (aber)

I am good, but you are better. ----- Ich bin gut, aber du bist besser.

Aber doesn't count as a word in sentences, it is called null position, so we pretend like it doesn't exist and just start counting after it.

1. when we have BECAUSE (weil)

I am good, because I talk with you. ------- Ich bin gut, weil ich mit dir rede.

Here we see that the verb went to the last position. Whenever we have weil in the sentence, in that sentence the verb goes to the last position.

1. when we ask questions by inversion

You are happy. -------- Du bist glücklich. verb is in second position

Are you happy? -------- Bist du glücklich? verb is now in first position

When we make inversion, we switch places of verb and a subject, so the verb goes to first position.

Those are some of the examples that you will need in the beginning, later it will all be simple and logical to you, just don't lose faith!