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Doch and mal | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| adoggie Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6326 days ago 160 posts - 159 votes  Speaks: English*, Japanese* Studies: German, Russian, French | Message 1 of 8 20 January 2010 at 8:50am | IP Logged |
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I was reading through "Deutsch: Na Klar, 3e" and encountered the usage of doch and mal in formal imperatives. The only problem is that the book gave only one sentence using doch and one using mal, with no explanations as to their distinctions. Doch was used with mitkommen and mal was used with anrufen. I was thinking: maybe mal has something to do with generally repeated actions, but then just about anything can be repeated, so maybe that's not the answer. Anyone familiar with this material?
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| Tropi Diglot Groupie Austria Joined 5224 days ago 67 posts - 87 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: Mandarin | Message 2 of 8 20 January 2010 at 11:43am | IP Logged |
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I assume "doch" was used in a sentence like "Willst du doch mitkommen?" or something like that?
In that case you're on the right way with your thinking. I will pick up your example: "Willst du doch mitkommen?" would be translated "Don't you want to come with us?". So there's an intention of changing someone's mind. "mal" is more like "Would you like to come with us?". There's not a very strong meaning. But if you post the complete sentences I can help to disassemble them. Edited by Tropi on 20 January 2010 at 12:32pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Reisender Triglot Newbie Italy Joined 5244 days ago 30 posts - 44 votes Speaks: German*, English, Italian Studies: Spanish, Latin, Ancient Greek, French | Message 3 of 8 20 January 2010 at 11:58am | IP Logged |
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Interesting question. Since i'm a native speaker, i never bothered to actually learn how the two of them are used the right way. Now that i'm thinking of it, i'm a bit unsure myself.
In my opinion, an imperative sentence with "doch" puts more emphasis on the motive of encouraging the adressed person. "Gib doch Tante Emma einen Kuss!" (~Why don't you give aunt Emma a kiss?) As far as i can tell, "mal" relates more to incidental requests. "Mach mal das Fenster zu!" (~Close the window while you're at it!) But this is mostly wild guessing on my part, mind you. Most of the time, though, you'll hear both of them combined anyway. "Mach doch mal das Fenster zu!" and "Gib doch Tante Emma mal einen Kuss" work just as well as the initial examples i gave. To my ears, they even sound a tad more courteous. Edited by Reisender on 20 January 2010 at 8:38pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5559 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 4 of 8 20 January 2010 at 12:22pm | IP Logged |
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Doch is used to soften the imperative so that it sounds more like a request without begging/less urging or to accompany an offer, and mal makes the whole statement vaguer, more 'let's talk about this more some other day.'
"Ruf mich (bitte) an wenn du zuhause angekommen bist." = (Please) call me once you arrived at home. If you don't say now that you won't be able to, I expect you to call me and will be worried/angry/sad if you don't. The relationship is clear-cut, close like between family members or maybe very business-like without room for vagueness. "Ruf mich doch an, wenn du etwas Zeit hast um mit mir ins Kino zu gehen." = Call me when you have some spare time to go to the movies. This is an offer; I expect you to call sooner or later but it won't hurt our relationship if for some valid reason you can't make the time. I think this kind of offer is used between friends and long-term acquaintances. "Ruf mich doch mal an, wenn du in der Stadt bist." = Call me when you're in town. Vague offer of a future meet-up - basically you're telling the other person the relationship will continue the way it was even though you're likely to not have a lot of contact. "Komm mit!" = Come with us. This is an order. "Komm doch mit zum Konzert!" = Hey, why don't you come with us to the gig? We're planning it out or are about to go and I think it would be great if you came, too. "Komm doch mal mit zum Schwimmen!" = We regularly go swimming, why don't you tag along some day? All of the sentences with kommen would work for I and we, I just had a group situation in mind when I tried to come up with examples. "Hör (sofort) auf zu trinken!" = Stop drinking immediately/Put down that glass immediately! Maybe a parent talking to their underage child, or somebody else who thinks the other person has to obey. "Hör doch auf zu trinken!" = Couldn't you please stop drinking? Other person either drinks too much regularly or has had enough already for today, so you're giving some well-meant and maybe a bit forceful advice. I just realized that some years before I read something about it being typically German to accept offers that were meant just to be polite; it's probably that most of us don't realize how we ourselves mark offers as vague/polite and never learn how to identify such polite offers in English? Because honestly, I never before thought about what 'doch' and 'mal' actually are there for. ETA: I was pretty much unable to come up with examples for using 'mal' without 'doch' because I was thinking about making appointments/offers. And there probably are a lot of other usages I can't think of. I'm curious what other native speakers as well as learners of German have to say about this. Edited by Bao on 20 January 2010 at 9:56pm 5 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Sprachjunge Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6958 days ago 368 posts - 548 votes Speaks: English*, GermanC2 Studies: Spanish, Russian | Message 5 of 8 20 January 2010 at 5:13pm | IP Logged |
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Wow, I think that's about the most cogent summary of "doch" and "mal" used in imperatives that I've ever read. Well done, Bao.
I use them all the time, and to be honest could not have summarized why; it's more like, there's only so many times you can hear a host family member say "Mach doch mal das Fenster zu" or a friend say "Hör mal auf, Alter" before you start saying it that way too! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| adoggie Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6326 days ago 160 posts - 159 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese* Studies: German, Russian, French | Message 6 of 8 21 January 2010 at 2:27am | IP Logged |
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The exact sentences in the textbook are as follows:
1) Kommen Sie doch heute vorbei. (Vorbeikommen, not mitkommen as I had initially thought.) = Why don't you come by today? 2) Rufen Sie mich mal an! = Give me a call some time. The translations are already in the book, but is there maybe some way to conceptualize doch and mal such that they can be applied organically? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5559 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 7 of 8 21 January 2010 at 10:39am | IP Logged |
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Those two examples are straightforward and easy to apply in a sentence
Imperative (+ Sie if Siezen) (+ acc object) + doch + rest of complemets including time frame => direct, serious offer/invitation Imperative (+ Sie if Siezen) (+ acc object) + mal + rest of complemets => vague offer/invitation But there are so many other possible usages of those words I can't even guess how likely it is to end up with a sentence that sounds annoyed or worse, so if I were a foreigner learning German I'd want to only use sentences I already had heard being used in said context until I get a feeling for the different nuances of the word. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Astrophel Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 5525 days ago 157 posts - 345 votes Speaks: English*, Latin, German, Spanish Studies: Russian, Cantonese, Polish, Sanskrit, Cherokee | Message 8 of 8 23 January 2010 at 7:43am | IP Logged |
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Germans I've spoken with often said "komm mal", which I always interpreted as "let's go (now)". After seeing it in different contexts I finally generalized "mal" to be a vague, almost filler word (similar in function to "like" in English) that draws attention to the time of something.
Komm mal = Let's go (now) = "mal" means "now" Rufen Sie mich mal an = Give me a call sometime = mal means "sometime" In the context of an offer, the reason "mal" turns a command into a vague invitation is because it connotes a sense of "time" without giving a specific time or date, similar to the difference between "call me next week" and "call me like, next week". Doch is much easier. Imagining it as "come on!" has worked in every instance I've ever seen it in, especially on its own as an interjection. In context, it softens a command into strong, friendly encouragement (Come ooooon!) Gib doch Tante Emma einen Kuss! = Come on! Give Aunt Emma a kiss! Komm doch mit zum Konzert!" = Come on, go with us to this concert! Both together mean "feel free to", more or less. Komm doch mal mit zum Schwimmen! = Feel free to come swimming with us (sometime)! ...There's "mal" giving a vague sense of time again! Mach doch mal das Fenster zu = Feel free to close the window. ...Here it's used as a polite suggestion that's really a veiled command. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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