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"Diesen Sommer" | ||
Tags: German | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| tennisfan Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5358 days ago 130 posts - 247 votes  Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish Studies: German | Message 1 of 5 09 November 2012 at 7:28am | IP Logged | ||
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I was flipping through my old Assimil book today, trying to review some German as I feel I'm having a hard time moving beyond B1. I saw this in a lesson and was wondering if someone could just clarify for me the use of "diesen" in the last sentence:
--Wo kommen Sie denn her? --Direkt von den Kanarischen Inseln! Dort ist das schönste Wetter, das man sich denken kann. Seit fünf Jahren verbringen wir dort unseren Winterurlaub. --Meine Frau und ich, wir wollen auch schon seit langem dorthin, aber immer kommt irgend etwas dazwischen. --Wenn Sie eines Tages doch fahren, kann ich Ihnen einige gute Tips geben --Diesen Sommer leider nicht, aber vielleicht klappt's im nächsten Frühling. I'm just wanting to make sure: the reason that "diesen" is in the accusative is that preceding qualifying adjectives/pronouns referring to time/date take the accusative, right? I'm just thinking that this must be too simple of an answer and I must be missing some kind of subtlety. Any help would be greatly appreciated. :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Ogrim Heptaglot Senior Member France Joined 4637 days ago 991 posts - 1896 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, French, Romansh, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Catalan, Latin, Greek, Romanian | Message 2 of 5 09 November 2012 at 9:48am | IP Logged | ||
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According to my old German school grammar, the accusative is used for expressions of time duration (as an answer to the question "Wie lange?"). In this case, there is no preposition. Other examples of this would be "Ich habe den ganzen Tag erwartet", Er war eine Woche bei uns".
As regards reference to a specific point in time (Wann?), you can use the accusative, but according to my grammar, in these cases it is more normal to use a preposition. (E.g. "Er starb den 7. November" or "Er starb am 7. November"). Finally, to express an indefinite point in time, you use genitive. In your Assimil text you have an example: Wenn Sie eines Tages doch fahren...." 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| LanguageSponge Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5764 days ago 1197 posts - 1487 votes Speaks: English*, German, French Studies: Welsh, Russian, Japanese, Slovenian, Greek, Italian | Message 3 of 5 09 November 2012 at 1:25pm | IP Logged | ||
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If you're referring to a specific point in time that is
a] not an adverb - e.g - morgen, heute, gestern, übermorgen and b] not governed by a preposition - e.g Im Sommer, am Montag then the expression is governed by the accusative case: Nächsten Sommer fahre ich in die USA Letztes Jahr bin ich nach Ungarn gefahren Diesen Montag fahre ich nach Suzhou As Ogrim has pointed out above, indefinite references to time are governed by the genitive case: Letzten Endes - ultimately, in the end, when it comes down to it eines Tages - one day eines Nachts* - one night *even though "Nacht" is feminine in German, in this expression it follows the rules for masculine nouns. I'm not sure why though. Hope this helps, Jack Edited by LanguageSponge on 09 November 2012 at 1:26pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Cabaire Senior Member Germany Joined 5597 days ago 725 posts - 1352 votes | Message 4 of 5 09 November 2012 at 3:30pm | IP Logged | ||
This is a formation by analogy. Because it is "der Morgen", "der Mittag", "der Abend", "der Tag", und therefore "eines Morgens", etc., the form "eines Nachts" and "des Nachts" became established, although it it illogical from a prescriptive grammatical point of view. It now sounds literary, colloquial you say "in der Nacht". 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| mrpootys Groupie United States Joined 5609 days ago 62 posts - 69 votes Speaks: English* | Message 5 of 5 09 November 2012 at 7:25pm | IP Logged | ||
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Because in German the dative cannot be used in an adverbial sense. So if you dont use a preposition, then
you would use the accusative. Also, when adding an apositive it is supposed to have the same case. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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