German's use of modal verbs is almost identical to English's, in fact most of its verb usage is, with the notable exception that English prominently features a

German's use of modal verbs is almost identical to English's, in fact most of its verb usage is, with the notable exception that English prominently features a romance-language-like gerund: "I am running." The funny bit with your example? Despite the similar usage, German complicates things further by splitting the primary and auxiliary verbs, with the primary being transported to the end of the clause: Ich sollte nach Hause laufen. Literally: I should to home run. This is no coincidence, since English grammar is basically a simplified version of German grammar. There's a clear continuum from German to English via Frisian and Dutch where the grammar is continually simplified relative to its Germanic root. You can see the same sort of progression in the Romance languages. Modern Italian is pretty much uncontroversially simpler than Latin.