When i meet an unknown english word and then look it up in the dictionary, take 'to eat' as an instance, it says' to put food into your mouth and swallow it'. however, when i look up german 'essen'. which means 'to eat' in english, the explanation would be ' etw essen. Nahrung in den Mund nehmen und schlucken' . I just wonder why german verbs are at the last postion in the explanation, but not in the second position? in my opinion, the german explanation of 'essen' should be ' zu essen etw, zu nehmen Nahrung in den Mund und schluchen' . I look up geman dictionary and find that all the verbs are explained with such formula if the subject is human ,and only when the subjects are revelant to non -human words will the explanation starts with 'etw verb etw'. i wanna know why??