Differences in the prefield in translations from Swedish to German

German and Swedish are two closely related languages and 80 % of the Swedish words are related to the German language. Even so, the preferences of how you structure information in the two languages differ. The differences are especially visible in the so called prefield and therefore, this sentence initial position stands in focus in this study. To find out what differences there are in the prefield in German and Swedish, not only parts of the German book Die Wand and the Swedish book Isprinsessan have been examined, but also parts of the German translation Die Eisprinzessin schläft. The two books Die Wand and Isprinsessan have been compared to find out what differences there are in the prefield in the two languages. The comparison of Isprinsessan and Die Eisprinzessin schläft had the purpose to show if the translator has chosen to follow the Swedish or the German preferences of how to structure information. The main question of this study is what differences are to be found in the sentence initial position when you compare a Swedish text with its German translation. The results of the analyses showed, that the most striking differences were, that subjects and expletives are more common in the Swedish prefield than in the German, while in the German language you often find adverbials in the prefield. This was also distinct when Isprinsessan and the German translation Die Eisprinzessin schläft were compared. When a subject was found in the prefield in the Swedish text, an adverbial was often found in the German text. This shows, that German and Swedish have different preferences when it comes to structuring information in sentences