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A German grammar problem | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| akeed Newbie Sri Lanka Joined 3715 days ago 22 posts - 23 votes Speaks: English* | Message 1 of 9 10 October 2014 at 3:25pm | IP Logged | ||
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How do you say "to the" in German?..I ask this because I came across several sentences
in Assimil which either uses the word 'zum' or 'ins' to imply "to the" I have written below two examples from the book "Damit gehen Sie besser zum Personalchef" meaning "With that you should better go to the HR manager" "Kommst du mit ins Cafe?" meaning "Will you come with me to the cafe?" Can someone who knows German, explain this to me in simple terms? I know it must be a simple answer! I am sorry if this seems like a silly question to ask but these kinds of problems are much more important to me (to form sentences) than for example memorizing vocabulary (which is a quite straightforward process) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| chiara-sai Triglot Groupie United Kingdom Joined 3707 days ago 54 posts - 146 votes  Speaks: Italian*, EnglishC2, French Studies: German, Japanese | Message 2 of 9 10 October 2014 at 3:47pm | IP Logged | ||
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“zum” is a contraction of “zu dem”, which means “to the” (masculine/neuter gender). “ins” is a contraction
of “in das”, which means “into the” (neuter gender). The proposition “to” can be used in very different contexts: in this case, the first sentence refers to meeting a person, the second to entering an establishment. German uses “zu” for the former, and “in” for the latter. Languages often differ in how they use prepositions, and it’s for a large part arbitrary. Edited by chiara-sai on 10 October 2014 at 3:47pm 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4532 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 3 of 9 10 October 2014 at 3:51pm | IP Logged | ||
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Prepositions are hard. I think you just have to learn them via native materials over time.
Why in English do you say "I got ON the bus" but "I got IN the car"? Edited by patrickwilken on 10 October 2014 at 3:52pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Doitsujin Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5319 days ago 1256 posts - 2363 votes Speaks: German*, English | Message 4 of 9 10 October 2014 at 4:28pm | IP Logged | ||
In German, "to the" is mostly expressed with the Dative case, which is also used after certain prepositions. Occasionally "to the" is also expressed with the Accusative case in German. ("Ins (=in das) Cafe" is actually an Accusative construction.) In order to know what prepositions to use you'll need to learn German verbs along with their prepositions. For example, "gehen" (≈ to visit) is usually used with "auf," "zu" or "in," depending on the meaning. BTW, the German Dative case doesn't necessarily require a preposition. For example: I'll give him the book./I'll give to the book to him. = Ich werde ⌀ ihm das Buch geben. The Assimil course will gradually introduce the most frequently used German verbs and the prepositions that they're used with. If you're a bit impatient, you can check out the (monolingual) elektronische Valenzwörterbuch. Edited by Doitsujin on 10 October 2014 at 4:29pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| osoymar Tetraglot Pro Member United States Joined 4735 days ago 190 posts - 344 votes Speaks: English*, German, Portuguese, Japanese Studies: Spanish, French Personal Language Map | Message 5 of 9 10 October 2014 at 10:19pm | IP Logged | ||
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As an example of how widely "to the" can be interpreted, another translation would be
"hoch." Four to the third (power) equals 64 Vier hoch drei ist 64 Unfortunately, while this is very obviously differently from "to the" in a directional movement sense, you have to account that the divisions in preposition usage to not correspond to those in English. So as stated above, you can either learn them in context or look them up one by one as necessary. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Gemuse Senior Member Germany Joined 4081 days ago 818 posts - 1189 votes Speaks: English Studies: German | Message 6 of 9 13 October 2014 at 9:52pm | IP Logged | ||
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Unrelated, but in
"Kommst du mit ins Cafe?" Are mit and in both prepositions here? So one preposition right after the other? Edited by Gemuse on 13 October 2014 at 9:53pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Henkkles Triglot Senior Member Finland Joined 4252 days ago 544 posts - 1141 votes Speaks: Finnish*, English, Swedish Studies: Russian | Message 7 of 9 13 October 2014 at 9:59pm | IP Logged | ||
Here's my guess: Mit|kommen (separable verb) to come with, to join and come along with (another person) Er kam (mit uns) mit. He came along (with us). to understand (something) Edited by Henkkles on 14 October 2014 at 12:09am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4532 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 8 of 9 14 October 2014 at 8:31am | IP Logged | ||
I wait to be corrected by a native speaker, but I think it's because the mit is part of the verb "mitkommen", which means to come along with someone, and is not a standalone preposition. So the sentence literally means something like "come you with 'someone' in the cafe?". The 'someone' being defined from context (e.g., are you coming with us/me to the cafe?). There is a long discussion here http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=2446518&lang id=3 Edited by patrickwilken on 14 October 2014 at 8:37am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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