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German Subjunctive Help | ||
Tags: Verbs/Conjugation | German | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages |  | |
| Bakunin Diglot Senior Member Switzerland outerkhmer.blogspot. Joined 5131 days ago 531 posts - 1126 votes  Speaks: German*, Thai Studies: Khmer | Message 17 of 21 22 June 2012 at 11:52pm | IP Logged | ||
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The Duden is just another grammar book. I don't trust grammar books. They're often outdated and don't reflect
actual language use. Lingoleng, do you personally use that construction, or can you give me a quote from an edited newspaper article or contemporary novel? Edited by Bakunin on 23 June 2012 at 12:18am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| lingoleng Senior Member Germany Joined 5299 days ago 605 posts - 1290 votes | Message 18 of 21 23 June 2012 at 1:33am | IP Logged | ||
Which one? Yours? And I already answered your question, if you use your Sprachgefühl and read between the lines: I said I am from Bavaria, suppose it is not common, while in other dialects, maybe from Northern or East Germany, this construction may be more acceptable. But well, who knows, how about sentences like: "Unter anderen Umständen würde er, glaube ich, das schon getan haben, aber dann kam der Regen und schwups - zu spät, Chance vertan." Does not sound so wrong, does it? Just because I do not use it neither in a formal register (where I would consider it rather bad style) nor in my dialect does not mean that others don't use it in their colloquial variants and think it is fine. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Umin Triglot Newbie Germany despairedreading.worRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4548 days ago 37 posts - 52 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Japanese Studies: French, Mandarin | Message 19 of 21 23 June 2012 at 5:48am | IP Logged | ||
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To me it sounds ok but very colloquial and a bit clumsy maybe, but in a colloquial conversation I guess it's fine to say so.
I personally wouldn't say it like that, but I can see why someone would. Oh and I'm from a South/Central-Western part of Germany, where a Moselle Franconian dialect (close to Luxemburgish) is spoken. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4845 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 20 of 21 23 June 2012 at 5:11pm | IP Logged | ||
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"Ich würde es gekauft haben" is an absolutely artificial construction. It is possible to use it, but it sounds unnatural and is only used in somewhat dated literature. You would always say "Ich hätte es gekauft" in colloquial language.
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| outcast Bilingual Heptaglot Senior Member China Joined 4950 days ago 869 posts - 1364 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English*, German, Italian, French, Portuguese, Mandarin Studies: Korean | Message 21 of 21 28 June 2012 at 6:10am | IP Logged | ||
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Good rule of thumb for foreigners. In the spoken language:
Stick to "simple tenses" (simple past aka "Imperfekt", and Konjunktiv II) with haben, sein, and the six modal verbs. Use the Perfekt (hat gesehen/ist gefolgt) and the "würde" periphrastic subjunctive with all other verbs. The reason even Germans themselves avoid compound tenses with sein/haben and the modals is because these are normally used as auxiliary verbs, and when you need to put a compound verb structure in a past tense, things can get complicated if you use a compound past (in some cases three or four verbs at the end, in other cases the conjugated verb required to go before the double infinitives). And many foreigners forget the modals in the Perfekt are in the infinitive and not the past participle... so yeah, it can get hairy. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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