2

Question: Dieser Roman liest sich sehr leicht ____________ kann man sogar Musik hören.

Here the correct answer is 'dabei'. But I don't see any point why 'gleichzeitig' can't fit here.... At the same time can a person hear Musik..?

Improve this question
1
  • 2
    Very, very strictly speaking, both dabei and gleichzeitig are wrong. "... liest sich sehr leicht ..." describes a characteristic of a book - Not any activity that can be done simultaneously to listening to music.
    – tofro
    Commented May 14, 2017 at 19:33

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
2

The two variations you offer here are

Dieser Roman liest sich sehr leicht. Dabei kann man sogar Musik hören.

Dieser Roman liest sich sehr leicht. Gleichzeitig kann man sogar Musik hören.

Technically you can put in here both, dabei und gleichzeitig, without a mistake in terms of actual grammar.

But there are problems related to style.

If you use gleichzeitig, the reader would have to silently interpolate something like

Dieser Roman liest sich sehr leicht. Gleichzeitig - also beim Lesen des Romans - kann man sogar Musik hören.

Which leads us to an explanation why actually both sentences sound a little bit odd to the German ear. Both dabei and gleichzeitig should actually refer to an activity (e.g. lesen), not an object (Roman), because you can do something at the same time as another activity, but not "at the same time as an object".

So, more common would be a sentence like

Dieser Roman ist leicht zu lesen. Dabei kann man sogar Musik hören.

Here, the dabei more clearly refers to lesen, which is more in the area of what would usually be expected.

Improve this answer

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service and acknowledge you have read our privacy policy.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.