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German: nicht vs. kein | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| OlafP Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5434 days ago 261 posts - 667 votes  Speaks: German*, French, English | Message 9 of 14 16 February 2010 at 2:03am | IP Logged | ||
No way. "Es geht mir nicht gut." is correct. You cannot use "kein" here, because this is used only with nouns. "gut" is no noun. "kein" is used like an adjective, i.e. it is subject to declension, whereas "nicht" always remains the same. Accusative: Ich habe keinen Hund. ("I have no dog." Dogs are masculine in German) Ich habe keine Katze. ("I have no cat." Cats are feminine.) Ich habe kein Pferd. ("I have no horse." Horses are neuter) Or you put it this way, which would have the same translation: Einen Hund habe ich nicht. Eine Katze habe ich nicht. Ein Pferd habe ich nicht. These sentences put more emphasis on the species of the animal. Dative: Ich gebe keinem Hund etwas. ("I don't give anything to any dog.") Ich gebe keiner Katze etwas. Ich gebe keinem Pferd etwas. You need a direct object with "geben" (to give), which is why I had to use "etwas" (anything/something). The indirect object, which is put into dative case, is optional. You can say: Ich gebe etwas. ("I give something.") Ich gebe nichts. ("I don't give anything.) Or, again with the indirect object, stressing the species of the animals: Einem Hund gebe ich nichts. Einer Katze gebe ich nichts. Einem Pferd gebe ich nichts. EDIT: I just see that I may cause more confusion saying "nicht" remains the same and using "nichts" in the examples. This is actually a different word. I'll call it a day now and leave it to others to get this mess sorted. :-) Edited by OlafP on 16 February 2010 at 2:09am 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| arkady Bilingual Diglot Groupie United States rightconditi Joined 5399 days ago 54 posts - 61 votes Speaks: English*, Russian* Studies: German | Message 10 of 14 16 February 2010 at 3:32am | IP Logged | ||
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OlafP, thanks for that. It's getting clearler, although not quite crystal. There seems to be always two ways of conveying something, but one is more natural while the other is not. I wonder if this is analagous to:
I have no dog Dog, I have not. Latter being unusual, but technically correct. Edited by arkady on 16 February 2010 at 3:33am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6469 days ago 2608 posts - 4866 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Esperanto, Greek, Mandarin, Latin, Dutch, Italian Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swahili, Indonesian, Japanese, Modern Hebrew, Portuguese | Message 11 of 14 16 February 2010 at 9:55am | IP Logged | ||
Indeed, I believe you got it. We would only use this latter phrasing to emphasize the type of animal. So if you want to say "I don't have a dog, but I have a dozen cats", then "Einen Hund habe ich nicht" could very well be used. German word order is a lot freer than English word order, so we often place things at the beginning or at the end of sentences to draw focus to them. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| schoenewaelder Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5559 days ago 759 posts - 1197 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Spanish, Dutch | Message 12 of 14 18 February 2010 at 7:22pm | IP Logged | ||
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"kein" negates the noun
"nicht" negates the verb edit: oops, that's not really correct, just ignore me. Edited by schoenewaelder on 19 February 2010 at 1:57pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Sprachjunge Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 7164 days ago 368 posts - 548 votes Speaks: English*, GermanC2 Studies: Spanish, Russian | Message 13 of 14 19 February 2010 at 2:35am | IP Logged | ||
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Also, note that, if both formulations are possible, German prefers the "kein" construction--to the best of my knowledge. For instance, for Fasulye's example:
"Meine Freundin hat keine Tochter." vs. "Meine Freundin hat nicht eine Tochter." My experience is that a native German speaker would prefer the first construction. (Kind of similar to the way "I don't have any kids" = "I have no kids," but most native English speakers would use the first construction unless there was special emphasis involved. In German, "I have no kids" is preferred.) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| OlafP Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5434 days ago 261 posts - 667 votes Speaks: German*, French, English | Message 14 of 14 19 February 2010 at 12:00pm | IP Logged | ||
What Fasulye wrote right to the = sign should be understood as making the meaning clearer to English speakers, but these sentences are not used in German like this. In a everyday situation "Meine Freundin hat nicht eine Tochter." would be considered wrong. You can negate the sentence with "nicht" by inverting it, as mentioned above: Eine Tochter hat meine Freundin nicht. This puts emphasis on the daughter, so this might indicate that the friend has a son, whereas "Meine Freundin hat keine Tochter." doesn't give any such hint. From a logical point of view the sentence "Meine Freundin hat nicht eine Tochter." can be understood as meaningful, but only mathematicians would grasp it. Don't use this in casual conversation. With "kein(e)" you negate "Tochter", but with "nicht" you negate "eine Tochter". This means that the friend may have any number of daughters except exactly one. One would understand {one daughter} as an inseparable expression, hence "My friend does not have {one daughter}", or !{one daughter} with the symbol for negation used in logic. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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