What is important in life, or what important is

[arzgol]

Which one is correct?


Parents can teach their children what important is in life.

Parents can teach their children what is important in life.

[riquecohen]

Which one is correct?


Parents can teach their children what important is in life.

Parents can teach their children what is important in life.

The second one is correct.

[5jj]

Parents can teach their children what is important in life.

In that sentence, which is correct, as riquecohen said, 'what' is the subject of the verb 'is'. In the sentence below, 'happiness' is the subject of the verb 'is':

Parents can teach their children what happiness is.

[CAE2]

Sometimes it is helpful to simplify a complex sentence to find the answer. In this case, we start by observing that English has a

Subject (S) Verb (V) Object (O) sentence order.

Looked at this way, your sentence can be simplified to:
Parents (S) teach (V) children (Indirect Object) something (Direct Object)

Your real question concerns the Direct Object which is itself a sentence. So you are asking which sentence is correct:

a) What (S) important (Adj: adjective) is (V)?
or
b) What (S) is (V) important (Adj)?

In the above sentence, “is” is a linking verb and is followed by a predicate adjective that describes the subject.

So the answer above is b) “What is important”.

If you want to learn more about predicate adjectives, take a look at:

Hope this helped!

[arzgol]

Thank you so much for elaborate explanation.