Help with some basic word order and use of cases

Question

So I have come across this sentence while doing some German practice:

Obwohl sie jünger als ich ist, ist meine Schwester sehr unternehmungslustig.

I have a couple of questions that I would appreciate some help with:

1. Why is 'ich' used rather than mich? I would of thought that the sister is in the nominative case and me is in the accusative, which would lead to using mich?

2. What causes the ist in the second part of the sentence to come before 'meine Schwester' and not directly after it, isn't the verb supposed to be the second idea of the sentence?

Thanks for any help guys.

Answer 1

Why is 'ich' used rather than mich? I would of thought that the sister is in the nominative case and me is in the accusative, which would lead to using mich?

No. The als comparison conjuction compares two things of the same kind. If you compare something to the subject, it must be in nominative as well.

What causes the ist in the second part of the sentence to come before 'meine Schwester' and not directly after it, isn't the verb supposed to be the second idea of the sentence?

It is. The whole subordinate clause is the first item inside the main clause.

Answer 2

Obwohl sie jünger als ich ist, ist meine Schwester sehr unternehmungslustig.

Regarding your first question:

You shouldn't transfer English grammar rules 1:1 to German. This might work sometimes, but will often fail. Yes, in English one would say "she is younger than me" - but in German, both compared subjects are in nominative case: "sie ist jünger als ich", "er ist genauso groß wie ich" are both correct.

Regarding your second question:

The position of the finite verb in the main clause depends on the position of the dependent clause:

Is the dependent clause a paranthesis into the main clause or is it written after the main clause, the finite verb in the main clause is in second position:

Meine Schwester ist sehr unternehmungslustig, obwohl sie jünger ist als ich.

Is the dependent clause written first, and then followed by the main clause, the finite verb in the main clause is in first position:

Obwohl sie jünger ist als ich, ist meine Schwester sehr unternehmungslustig.

Exeptions occur when the main clause starts with a "Korrelat":

Wie du heißt, das wollte er wissen.

See this overview over the word order in main an dependent clauses (in German).