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Wann bist du geboren? (German) | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages |  | |
| Doitsujin Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5265 days ago 1256 posts - 2363 votes  Speaks: German*, English | Message 17 of 71 11 January 2014 at 12:49am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
IMHO, this is similar to English native speakers arguing whether to use "between you and I/me." or "one in five Germans is/are..." As for German, it doesn't really matter, whether you use one form or the other, because you won't encounter this phrase that often anyway, unless you plan to send out lots of German résumés, in which case you can use the version recommended by the Duden: "ich wurde geboren." 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Random review Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5728 days ago 781 posts - 1310 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin, Yiddish, German | Message 18 of 71 11 January 2014 at 9:06pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
I don't imagine I'll want to inform people of my D.O.B. that often, but I might well want to ask them when they were born (which is the question in the OP). Also, some native speakers clearly find "Wann bist du geboren?" incorrect; whilst others I have read online find "Wann wurdest du geboren?" a bit bookish or even affected (gestelzt is the word I've seen used)...so this matters to us learners (obviously I'll use the "bookish" version in the unlikely event I'm ever lucky enough to apply for a job in Germany and need a German CV ha ha!). Finally, regardless of the practical utility of the phrase, one of my main reasons for learning German is precisely to understand how this beautiful language works. FWIW, google gave me about 100k hits for "Wann bist du geboren?" and about 89k hits for "Wann wurdest du geboren?", so my strong suspicion is that both would be considered correct by linguists. I'd like to know more, frankly. Thanks to everyone for their answers so far. Edited by Random review on 11 January 2014 at 9:24pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Doitsujin Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5265 days ago 1256 posts - 2363 votes Speaks: German*, English | Message 19 of 71 12 January 2014 at 1:32am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Unfortunately, you cannot rely on Google, because it indexes everything. For example, if you google "recieve," you'll get almost 9 million hits, however, "recieve" still hasn't been accepted as an alternative spelling of "receive." :-) If you want to play armchair linguist, I'd recommend playing with Google Book's NGram Viewer, which gives you somewhat more realistic results, since it only searches books scanned by Google. For example, "ich bin geboren" apparently peaked in 1812 and steadily declined ever since. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Random review Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5728 days ago 781 posts - 1310 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin, Yiddish, German | Message 20 of 71 12 January 2014 at 1:46am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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It's not the same thing: native speakers misspell words all the time in English; they rarely screw up basic
grammar in any language unless exceptionally tired or nervous. As for NGram viewer, thanks for the tip, but whilst looking online since posting my OP I have seen that some native speakers find "Wann wurdest du geboren?" to be precisely somewhat "bookish". Your results merely confirm that this structure is almost obligatory in the formal written language and doesn't change the impression I have that there seems to be real disagreement among you native speakers as to which sounds best in colloquial language. Google results always need to be taken with a pinch of salt, I agree; I'm not sure I deserved to be accused of "playing armchair linguist", though. It was only a rough first stab at comparing frequencies. My mention of linguists was only a nod to the fact that to most modern linguists, a language's grammar is by definition the grammar actually used by native speakers, regardless of what the prescriptivists say should be used. Edited by Random review on 12 January 2014 at 1:50am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Doitsujin Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5265 days ago 1256 posts - 2363 votes Speaks: German*, English | Message 21 of 71 12 January 2014 at 9:14am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
There is indeed real disagreement among German speakers as to which sounds best in colloquial German, but there's also disagreement about other basic constructions. For example, in Southern Germany, most speakers will find constructions such as "ich bin gestanden/gesessen" perfectly acceptable. IMHO, most likely some speakers simply mix up the different forms of the "Zustandspassiv" and the "Vorgangspassiv" (sorry, I don't know the English equivalents), which partially overlap with other constructions.
I'm sorry, I really didn't mean to offend you. I should have picked a more politically correct and less offensive expression. This is what happens, when non-native speakers try their hand at idioms that they don't fully understand. :-)
A language's grammar is, of course, affected by the spoken language to some extent, but not all changes in the spoken language eventually become accepted and make it into the grammar books. OTOH, some dedicated linguists actually managed to substantially change the written and spoken language. For example, German language purist Joachim Heinrich Campe single-handedly added some 300 words to the German language. He's best known for replacing "Rendezvous" with "Stelldichein," but also invented words such as "fortschrittlich" and "Feingefühl." Edited by Doitsujin on 12 January 2014 at 2:02pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| daegga Tetraglot Senior Member Austria lang-8.com/553301 Joined 4466 days ago 1076 posts - 1792 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Swedish, Norwegian Studies: Danish, French, Finnish, Icelandic | Message 22 of 71 12 January 2014 at 10:34am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Just so nobody gets confused: this only applies to a handful of verbs, otherwise the distinction between "haben" und "sein" is the same as in the North. small fun fact: 'bin gestanden' is the perfect of 'stehen', 'habe gestanden' is the perfect of 'gestehen' also, 'habe gesessen' is an idiomatic expression for 'having been in prison' (this may be specific to Austria, I don't know) So it's not only that both 'haben' und 'sein' are acceptable here in the South, they also lead to a different meaning. And this is not only colloquial, these forms are also used in writing. For a guy from the South, doing it the northern way probably feels just as "weird" as vice versa. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Random review Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5728 days ago 781 posts - 1310 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin, Yiddish, German | Message 23 of 71 12 January 2014 at 5:55pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
I don't think there's anything wrong with your handling of English idioms, mate. Reading your post again today it's obvious that I misunderstood. What can I say? I did admit that native speakers make mistakes when when they're tired and it was after 1am ha ha. Anyway, sorry. I'm mystified by this construction with sein to be honest. I understood the passive with sein to describe a resultant state rather than an action. So "Wann bist du geboren?" would mean "when are you in a state of having been born?". That makes no sense so my underatanding must lack something. Has gebären been reanalysed as "to be born" rather than "to bear" by some speakers? Surely not as then why does everyone agree that "Wann wurdest du geboren?" is correct (even if some think it sounds bookish)? Is it instead a shortened version of "Wann bist du geboren worden?"? Edited by Random review on 12 January 2014 at 6:08pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4789 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 24 of 71 12 January 2014 at 6:02pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
I think this is the solution to the mistery. Another possible answer would be idiomatic usage. The whole construction strikes me as rather colloquial though. EDIT: By the way, the verb in question is "gebären", not "*bären", which doesn't exist. Edited by Josquin on 12 January 2014 at 6:11pm 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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