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German - "nicht" placement | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| soclydeza85 Senior Member United States Joined 3907 days ago 357 posts - 502 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: German, French | Message 1 of 6 17 March 2014 at 11:16pm | IP Logged | ||
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Can someone explain the placement of "nicht" to negate a statement? Sometimes I see it occur directly after the first (auxiliary) verb, sometimes I see it at the end of the sentence. For example:
1) Ich kann nicht mein Auto finden. 2) Ich kann mein Auto nicht finden. Is there a difference between these two statements or is it more just a matter of preference? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 DavidStyles Octoglot Pro Member United Kingdom Joined 3941 days ago 82 posts - 179 votes Speaks: English*, German, Italian, Spanish, Latin, French, Portuguese, Norwegian Studies: Mandarin, Russian, Swedish, Danish, Serbian, Arabic (Egyptian) Personal Language Map | Message 2 of 6 17 March 2014 at 11:28pm | IP Logged | ||
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Technically one's negating "können" and the other is negating "finden", but this difference is irrelevant to the meaning of the sentence as a whole - in either case, no matter which verb specifically is being negated, your car is remaining elusive.
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| daegga Tetraglot Senior Member Austria lang-8.com/553301 Joined 4521 days ago 1076 posts - 1792 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Swedish, Norwegian Studies: Danish, French, Finnish, Icelandic | Message 3 of 6 17 March 2014 at 11:31pm | IP Logged | ||
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The usual (unmarked) way would be 2)
1) seems like a response to a question following the scheme "Ich kann nicht <quote>", ie. you don't want to change the quote. It sounds quite weird in your example, without any context. example: Mum: "Kannst du den Müll rausbringen?" Angry teenager: "Nein, ich kann NICHT den Müll rausbringen!" *shuts the door* Keep also in mind that the new orthography might trick you. "Ich kann nicht Rad fahren" = "Ich kann nicht radfahren". "Ich kann Rad nicht fahren" wouldn't be possible because "Rad" is not an object here. Edited by daegga on 17 March 2014 at 11:39pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4844 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 4 of 6 17 March 2014 at 11:32pm | IP Logged | ||
The first one sounds strange, the second one is the normal version. Usually, "nicht" comes after the object. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| soclydeza85 Senior Member United States Joined 3907 days ago 357 posts - 502 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, French | Message 5 of 6 17 March 2014 at 11:39pm | IP Logged | ||
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Wow, you guys are quick! Okay, that makes sense, so typically I want to negate the main verb (finden, in this case)?
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| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4622 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 6 of 6 18 March 2014 at 12:04am | IP Logged | ||
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The second example sounds correct to me. I often think that word order is best learned by listening to how
the natives do it rather than tie yourself in knots with terms like subjects and indirect objects, trying to work out what goes where. 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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