Register  Login  Active Topics  Maps  

German: "aus lauter Frust"

  Tags: Grammar | German
 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages Post Reply
11 messages over 2 pages: 1
Bao
Diglot
Senior Member
Germany
tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5
Joined 5771 days ago

2256 posts - 4046 votes 
Speaks: German*, English
Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin

 
 Message 9 of 11
05 March 2014 at 7:21pm | IP Logged 
You could say, there's two "lauter"s, and the one we still use is undeclinable. You could also say lauter has two variants, one is outdated, has a paradigm and means "pure". The other one is currently in use, is undeclinable, and often maps to "sheer". I don't know if this works as a guideline, but I usually think of "lauter" as suggesting there really is a lot, even too much of something, not that the something is complete or pure. "Vor lauter Bäumen den Wald nicht sehen" doesn't mean you can't see the forest because the trees are too pure, but that there are too many of them - to be precise, you are looking at too many of them in isolation; you're paying too much attention to detail and lose sight of the whole thing.

Versteigern means to auction.

Edited by Bao on 05 March 2014 at 7:35pm

2 persons have voted this message useful



tarvos
Super Polyglot
Winner TAC 2012
Senior Member
China
likeapolyglot.wordpr
Joined 4712 days ago

5310 posts - 9399 votes 
Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans
Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish

 
 Message 10 of 11
09 March 2014 at 11:17am | IP Logged 
In German you can use "lauter" as an adjective? Damn, you learn something new every day.

I would have said it's an adverb, and I would always use it as such. Not to mention
that's probably a fixed expression.

(In Dutch the use is comparable to what Bao said. I spell it "louter" though).

Edited by tarvos on 09 March 2014 at 11:25am

1 person has voted this message useful





Iversen
Super Polyglot
Moderator
Denmark
berejst.dk
Joined 6708 days ago

9078 posts - 16473 votes 
Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan
Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian
Personal Language Map

 
 Message 11 of 11
10 March 2014 at 12:18pm | IP Logged 
"Lauter" is definitely an adjective, whether it is declinable or not. Things that are hooked directly unto substantives are adjectives (or numbers, articles or certain kinds of adjectival pronouns). The one thing they can't be is adverbs.


2 persons have voted this message useful



This discussion contains 11 messages over 2 pages: << Prev 1

If you wish to post a reply to this topic you must first login. If you are not already registered you must first register


Post ReplyPost New Topic Printable version Printable version

You cannot post new topics in this forum - You cannot reply to topics in this forum - You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum - You cannot create polls in this forum - You cannot vote in polls in this forum


This page was generated in 0.7656 seconds.


DHTML Menu By Milonic JavaScript
Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved
No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization.