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Wenig versus bißchen | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages |  | |
| rapp Senior Member United States Joined 5551 days ago 129 posts - 204 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Esperanto, Spanish | Message 1 of 13 06 April 2010 at 7:32pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm studying Assimil German with Ease, and have a question about a couple of sentences.
In one lesson a character is asked if she speaks German and she replies "Ich spreche nur ein wenig Deutsch", which is translated as "I speak only a little German." In a later lesson, another character who has begun studying German says "Aber hören Sie, ich spreche auch schon ein bißchen Deutsch", which is translated as "But listen, I already speak a little German, too." So my question is what is the difference between wenig and bißchen? According to my student dictionary and dict.cc they both mean "a little", but are they true synonyms, or does one imply a smaller amount than the other? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5201 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 2 of 13 06 April 2010 at 8:16pm | IP Logged | ||
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ein bißchen is "a bit". Bißchen is a noun.
wenig is an adjective meaning little or few. I would say it has a more negative connotation in that it indicates how little or unsubstantial something is, which is why you have "nur ein wenig", but "schon ein bißchen". Edited by Arekkusu on 07 April 2010 at 6:06pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| rapp Senior Member United States Joined 5551 days ago 129 posts - 204 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Esperanto, Spanish | Message 3 of 13 06 April 2010 at 10:19pm | IP Logged | ||
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I don't understand why "nur" or "schon" would make a difference. I don't know if you're familiar with this course, so let me give a little more context.
In the first dialog, a woman approaches another in a park and asks if a seat is available. It is, so the woman sits down and starts making small talk - this sunshine is wonderful, the air is nice, do you come here often - but the second woman doesn't respond. Finally, the first woman asks if the second speaks German. The response is "Nein, ich bin französin. Ich spreche nur ein wenig Deutsch." So she knows enough to respond to a couple of simple questions, but not enough to chit-chat about the weather. In the second dialog, one character asks another what he is doing. He is learning German. Why? He wants to work in Germany. His company has a subsidiary in Frankfurt. But he speaks English, doesn't he? Of course he does. But then he speaks the line I quoted above: "Aber hören Sie, ich spreche auch schon ein bißchen Deutsch." And then he proceeds to stumble through a few very basic sentences as if he is reading them haltingly from a lesson book. "Wo ist das Hotel Ritz?" "Ich möchte bitte ein Bier und ein Steak." And so forth. So I took "schon" to mean that he is proud that he is already capable of reciting a couple of sentences. But I don't understand how that word is connected to the amount of German he has learned, just to the fact that he has learned some small amount in the (apparently) little studying he has done so far. I guess I'm asking whether by using bißchen he is precisely claiming to speak _very_ little German, versus the other character using wenig to mean still a small amount but more than bißchen. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ember Triglot Groupie CyprusRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5223 days ago 63 posts - 101 votes Speaks: Russian*, English, German Studies: Spanish, French, Greek, Polish | Message 4 of 13 06 April 2010 at 10:36pm | IP Logged | ||
"Nur" and "schon" don't make a difference. "Nur" means "only", so the first speaker says "I speak ONLY a little German". "Schon" means already, so the second speaker says "I ALREADY speak a little German". No difference in the language level here. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5201 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 5 of 13 06 April 2010 at 10:36pm | IP Logged | ||
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It's similar to the English "sorry, but I only speak little English" vs. "but I already speak a bit of English". You wouldn't say I speak little English if you wanted a job where English is needed, which is why they are not using "wenig". So yes, nur and schon do make a difference in the perceived level of ability in speaking the language. Edited by Arekkusu on 06 April 2010 at 10:38pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6729 days ago 4250 posts - 5710 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 6 of 13 07 April 2010 at 12:20am | IP Logged | ||
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Of course "nur" and "schon" make a difference, but I suppose either one could be used for both "wenig" and "bisschen" (at least I've heard "nur ein wenig" and "nur ein bisschen").
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| rapp Senior Member United States Joined 5551 days ago 129 posts - 204 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Esperanto, Spanish | Message 7 of 13 07 April 2010 at 5:48pm | IP Logged | ||
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I just don't think schon has the same effect in these senteces as nur does. It seems to relate to the amount of time the character has studied, not to the amount he has learned. He seems quite impressed with himself that he has only just begun studying, and _already_ he can say a few things, whereas nur in the other sentence seems to be used to diminish the amount that the character is claiming to know.
Indeed, in the exercises for the first lesson under discussion, there occurs the sentence "Ich spreche ein wenig Deutsch." I would say that someone who said this would be claiming to know more German than if they had said "nur ein wenig". So let me propose the following sentences: 1. Ich spreche ein wenig Deutsch. 2. Ich spreche nur ein wenig Deutsch. 3. Ich spreche ein bisschen Deutsch. 4. Ich spreche nur ein bisschen Deutsch. Do these sentences imply a hierarchy where the implied knowledge of German goes 1 > 2 > 3 > 4? Or maybe 1 = 3 and 2 = 4? Or maybe something else entirely? I'm not sure I followed Arekkusu's post, but he might be saying that 3 > 4 > 1 > 2. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5201 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 8 of 13 07 April 2010 at 6:16pm | IP Logged | ||
Allow me to rephrase my own post to clarify it, as this nuance appears to be of utmost importance to you: "wenig" indicates how little or few of something there is. Not surprisingly, you wouldn't expect a man wanting a job where German is needed, and who yet only just started learning it, to try to impress his potential employers by saying that he speaks "ein wenig Deutsch". On the contrary, he used "ein bisschen", which is rather ambiguous, and embellished it by saying "schon" as if to indicate how impressive his progress had been. "nur" and "wenig" both carry restrictive connotations. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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