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3 questions about German | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Diogo Diglot Newbie Brazil Joined 5573 days ago 19 posts - 20 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, English Studies: Italian | Message 1 of 12 25 May 2013 at 3:09am | IP Logged | |||||
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I've been studying German for some time and I'm loving it! I'm using German With Ease, from Assimil. Some questions appeared:
1) I'm so used to the SVO word order from Portuguese and English but I'm finally getting the hang of the V2 syntax from German. Just to make it 100% clear to me, I'll write the same sentence in all 6 possible ways: a) Heute gehe ich ins Kino. b) Heute gehe ins Kino ich. c) Ich gehe heute ins Kino. d) Ich gehe ins Kino heute. e) Ins Kino gehe ich heute. f) Ins Kino gehe heute ich. For me, b) and f) sound really odd, but are they grammatically correct? What about the others? 2) In my book, it is written: Er ißt seine Würstchen ohne Senf. From what I understand, the -chen ending makes the noun neuter. Since Würstchen is the object of the sentece, we have to use the accusative. The accusative of the neuter would be sein, making the phrase "Er ißt sein Würstchen ohne Senf". Where am I getting it wrong? 3) In the sentence "Trinkst du den Kaffe mit Zucker?" is the den article necessary or can it be omitted? Thank you. Edited by Diogo on 25 May 2013 at 3:43am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Random review Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5784 days ago 781 posts - 1310 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin, Yiddish, German | Message 2 of 12 25 May 2013 at 3:38am | IP Logged | |||||
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Well I'm no expert, so take my answers with a pinch of salt:
In question 2 it's a plural, that's why it's "seine" and not "sein". In question 3 "den" is the definite article (the) and not a pronoun and the sentence would mean something different without it (it would mean coffee in general I think). Regarding question 1, (b) and (f) sound very odd to me too; but I don't know for sure whether they are wrong or not. Hope this helps and that what I've written is correct. Edited by Random review on 25 May 2013 at 3:44am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Diogo Diglot Newbie Brazil Joined 5573 days ago 19 posts - 20 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, English Studies: Italian | Message 3 of 12 25 May 2013 at 3:47am | IP Logged | |||||
2) Got it. 3) Yes! I meant article. I fixed it on the post above. Thank you. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cabaire Senior Member Germany Joined 5600 days ago 725 posts - 1352 votes | Message 4 of 12 25 May 2013 at 3:57am | IP Logged | |||||
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Only b (Heute gehe ins Kino ich) seems to me not acceptable, all the other sentences are possible, but have the emphasis on different parts of the sentence.
f) means, that it is I, who goes to the cinema, not you or another one. PS. Duden, die Grammatik is not of my opinion: Die Besetzung des Nachfeldes - die Ausklammerung: Auch das Subjekt wird nicht ausgeklammert, zumal wenn sie pronominal gebildet sind. Man kann z. B. nicht sagen: Er geht, wenn bei der Versammlung eingebracht wird eine Resulution" Edited by Cabaire on 25 May 2013 at 4:10am 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Random review Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5784 days ago 781 posts - 1310 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin, Yiddish, German | Message 5 of 12 25 May 2013 at 3:58am | IP Logged | |||||
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No worries, Diogo. I'm a learner just like you, like you I'm loving it
and like you I'm even using German with ease as one of my methods (along with FSI, LR and the TV method). Edited by Random review on 25 May 2013 at 4:01am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Random review Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5784 days ago 781 posts - 1310 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin, Yiddish, German | Message 6 of 12 25 May 2013 at 3:59am | IP Logged | |||||
Cheers, Cabaire. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Kronos Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5262 days ago 186 posts - 452 votes Speaks: German*, English | Message 7 of 12 25 May 2013 at 5:54pm | IP Logged | |||||
b) and f) are both very odd and would never be used ('ich' at the end). e) sounds like an affirmation (emphasis on 'Ins Kino'), responding to someone who still hasn't understood where I am going In the other three it's just a matter of emphasis, all are correct and almost alike, the most common one would be c) 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Jinx Triglot Senior Member Germany reverbnation.co Joined 5694 days ago 1085 posts - 1879 votes Speaks: English*, German, French Studies: Catalan, Dutch, Esperanto, Croatian, Serbian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Italian, Spanish, Yiddish | Message 8 of 12 26 May 2013 at 4:29pm | IP Logged | |||||
I second this. Although I'm not a native speaker, I'm going to give a shot at explaining the different types of emphasis that Kronos mentioned above. Kronos or any other native speaker, feel free to correct me if I get this wrong! a) Heute gehe ich ins Kino. To me, this sounds like the answer to the question "What are you doing today?" No particular stress on any one part of the sentence; possibly making the decision right then in the moment. "Today... I'm going to the cinema." c) Ich gehe heute ins Kino. No particular emphasis. This is standard German word order, following the Te-Ka-Mo-Lo guidelines: time comes before location, and therefore neither one is emphasized. d) Ich gehe ins Kino heute. Since "heute" comes at the end of the sentence here – slightly out of the ordinary – that puts a little emphasis on it. So this is a good answer to the question "Are you going to the cinema tomorrow?": "(No,) I'm going to the cinema TODAY." e) Ins Kino gehe ich heute. Conversely, here "ins Kino" is emphasized by being put at the beginning of the sentence. I would imagine someone replying this way if they were asked "Are you going to the zoo today?": "(No,) I'm going to the CINEMA today." I hope this helps. (And I hope it's all correct!) 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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