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German: Konjunctiv II + doch/mal | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages |  | |
| Gemuse Senior Member Germany Joined 4083 days ago 818 posts - 1189 votes  Speaks: English Studies: German | Message 1 of 6 15 April 2014 at 11:01am | IP Logged |
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For Konjunctiv II suggestions, are doch, mal, doch+mal the same?
1. Wir könnten mal wieder zusammen was unternehmen. 2. Du könntest doch Mathe lernen. 3. Gehen Sie doch mal ins Haus! These are the sentences in my book. I am wondering if each sentence would be correct with either doch, mal, or doch+mal. Edited by Gemuse on 15 April 2014 at 1:20pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Radioclare Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom timeofftakeoff.com Joined 4584 days ago 689 posts - 1119 votes Speaks: English*, German, Esperanto Studies: Croatian, Serbian, Macedonian | Message 2 of 6 15 April 2014 at 11:53am | IP Logged |
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I think 'mal' softens a suggestion, whereas 'doch' intensifies it. So while you could swap mal/doch around in those sentences, they would have slightly different meanings. For example 'Du könntest doch Mathe lernen' sounds quite reproachful, and perhaps implies that the person should have been learning maths but hasn't. Whereas 'Du könntest mal Mathe lernen' is more of an encouraging suggestion for something it might be helpful for them to do.
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| Gemuse Senior Member Germany Joined 4083 days ago 818 posts - 1189 votes Speaks: English Studies: German | Message 3 of 6 19 April 2014 at 9:19pm | IP Logged |
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Thanks!
What about doch+mal? Is it in between doch and mal, like a more intense suggestion? Du könntest doch mal Mathe lernen. Edited by Gemuse on 19 April 2014 at 9:19pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Radioclare Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom timeofftakeoff.com Joined 4584 days ago 689 posts - 1119 votes Speaks: English*, German, Esperanto Studies: Croatian, Serbian, Macedonian | Message 4 of 6 21 April 2014 at 10:19pm | IP Logged |
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To me the 'doch' sounds like a contradiction and the 'mal' is still softening the
suggestion, eg. perhaps the person has just made a comment to the effect that they will never be able to understand maths and the speaker wants to (gently) contradict that assumption by telling them that they could actually have a go at learning maths. However I don't think I have ever used both words in a sentence myself so I would be lying if I said I was completely sure. The only example I can think of from real life is once when I was having an argument with someone in which I was strongly criticising something I hadn't ever tried, and he challenged me: "Versuch's doch mal!". I don't know what a perfect English translation would be but in that context I understood it as "Why don't you actually give it a try sometime?!" 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5767 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 5 of 6 21 April 2014 at 10:47pm | IP Logged |
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Radioclare is pretty close to the mark. One thing that misses is context, for example "Du könntest doch Mathe lernen." sounds alright when said by a parent to their teenage kid who is complaining of being bored because none of his/her friends has time to hang out. Especially when the teenager knows very well there'll be a test coming up soon and s/he isn't that good in the subject. Then it actually sounds really nice, much nicer as anything my mum would've said to me. She might phrase it "Lern doch Mathe!" which is a softened version of the imperative.
doch + mal ... is generally used when you know the other person isn't doing something, you believe they would profit from doing it but they are hesitant. The 'doch' makes it sound less like an order and more like a suggestion, and the 'mal' makes it sound like less of a commitment? Like, you can try once and afterwards decide that it does indeed suck? I'd probably say "Why don't you ..." in English. Oh, Radioclare, if I was that annoyed I'd probably add 'wenigstens'. =) With most intonations, "Versuch's doch mal!" sounds pretty encouraging to me. Like, saying that you are sure I will change my mind if I just give it a try; not like you know I have no idea what I am talking about (both of which are probably true). 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| 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 6 of 6 28 April 2014 at 5:24am | IP Logged |
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"Versuch's doch mal" in particular seems like a pretty ossified phrase, in other words it is just the way it is. Think of the English "Come on in everybody" (the "on in" being quite contradictory when analyzed at first, but "come on!" in itself is a phrase to which "in" is added to indicate direction of movement. Still sounds a bit odd to me!).
Edited by outcast on 28 April 2014 at 5:25am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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