Timeline for I am trying to say "I was listening to the Lord of the Rings audiobook ..."
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
13 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Jun 26, 2019 at 7:50 | comment | added | Arjuna Deva | I'm learning German myself but could the following work?: "Als ich Musik gehört habe,..." Then it would be explicit from the first sentence that something else is going on while I was listening to music. | |
| Jun 19, 2019 at 18:19 | comment | added | user unknown | @HenningKockerbeck: Deine grundsätzliche Bemerkung finde ich überflüssig. Die meisten Probleme lassen sich irgendwie umschiffen, aber meist sollen hier sprachliche Probleme geklärt, nicht vermieden werden. | |
| Jun 19, 2019 at 16:10 | comment | added | Henning Kockerbeck | @CallMeCody Simple past, "I listened to music", is used for past actions in general. The action may or may not have taken place at the point in time the conversation is about. It's also used for regular actions, habits etc. ("I listened to music (regularily), but when my CD player broke, I stopped"). On the other hand, past progressive, "I was listening to music", emphasizes that the action took place at the specific moment the conversation is about. It also emphasizes that the action lasted for a period of time, instead of just occuring at a single moment ("Verlaufsform"). | |
| Jun 19, 2019 at 14:01 | comment | added | ChriZ | When would you use "I listened to music." and when "I was listening to music."? Why is the difference so important to you? As a native german speaker I don't get what's the big deal ;) | |
| Jun 19, 2019 at 13:50 | comment | added | ChriZ | You say "Ich habe Musik gehört." That's just how it works in german. | |
| Jun 19, 2019 at 13:41 | comment | added | professor_cha0s | What I am confused with though is how to correctly translate verbs that contain the ing endings, because from what I can gather all I need is to add "als" or "während" and a description of another event, but what If I only want to say something like "I was listening to music". For this case I don't have a "as" something else was happening to add. or put another way how would could I tell if "Ich habe Musik gehört." was saying "I listened to music" or "I was listing to music."? | |
| Jun 19, 2019 at 13:32 | comment | added | Henning Kockerbeck | @user38737 As a general remark, you don't have to thrust everything into one sentence ;) Also, you might want to think about leaving out some technical details that the listener doesn't neccessarily care about: "Ich hörte mir gerade ein Hörbuch mit meinem Bluetooth-Headset an, als Sie anriefen. Da habe ich vergessen, die Audio-Ausgabe wieder zurück auf das Telefon zu stellen." | |
| Jun 19, 2019 at 13:28 | comment | added | Henning Kockerbeck | In the first example I'd use simple past, because it refers to a point in time. To stress the concurrency, one could use "gerade": "Ich hörte mir gerade das Hörbuch an, als es an der Tür klingelte". The second example is fine with present perfect, because it refers to time periods in both parts. | |
| Jun 19, 2019 at 13:27 | comment | added | professor_cha0s | Ich habe das Hörbuch "The Lord of the Rings" mit meinem Bluetooth-Headset angehört, als Sie angerufen haben, und ich habe vergessen, die Bluetooth-Einstellungen zu ändern, mit denen der Ton während eines Telefonats wieder auf mein Telefon übertragen wird. | |
| Jun 19, 2019 at 13:27 | comment | added | professor_cha0s | which looks like: | |
| Jun 19, 2019 at 13:27 | comment | added | professor_cha0s | what I am trying to say in full was: I was listening to the audiobook "The Lord of the Rings" with my Bluetooth headset when you called, and I forgot to change the Bluetooth settings that will transfer the sound back to my phone during a call. | |
| Jun 19, 2019 at 13:20 | review | First posts | |||
| Jun 19, 2019 at 13:32 | |||||
| Jun 19, 2019 at 13:19 | history | answered | ChriZ | CC BY-SA 4.0 |