My step-father and I have a long-standing joke in which I will tell him "don't drop the soap" (because he's in prison). I'm writing him a letter and I want to say this in German. I have two German textbooks, but they aren't very helpful in this case. I looked up what "to drop" is in German and I found that fallen lassen means what I want, but I don't know if I'm using it right. I wrote "Fall (du) nicht die Seife gelassen." Google translate and other websites keep giving me different results, so I have no idea which is correct.
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Just curious: What is the relation between being in prison and dropping the soap?– celtschkCommented Jul 25, 2014 at 14:42
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1 Answer
I'm assuming, you're having for example a phone call with your step-father at the end of which you might say: "Bye! And, oh, don't drop the soap!" In this case in my opinion the correct version would be:
Lass nicht die Seife fallen!
As you can see in the comments, there are a lot of ways to add or remove shades of meaning by changing the word order (emphasis) or adding flavouring particles. If you substantiate the particular context, you might get an answer even more precise. Otherwise this should do!
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8Personally I'd prefer "Lass die Seife nicht fallen". Either way I'm not sure it works quite the same way in German.– IngmarCommented Jul 11, 2014 at 0:19
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3You can add a "bloß", it is stylistically appropriate here and makes the expression more lively: "Lass bloß nicht die Seife fallen!"– RaphaelCommented Jul 11, 2014 at 1:59
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1All proposed solutions could benefit from an omission apostrophe: Lass -> Lass'– guidot ♦Commented Jul 11, 2014 at 6:47
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5@guidot That would be wrong, because there's no omission. It's the imperative form of lassen, which is just lass!– Em1Commented Jul 11, 2014 at 7:24
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1@Ingmar I edited my post slightly to make clear, what exact situation I was thinking of. Your version puts the emphasis on the soap, rather than on the act of dropping.– zwiebelCommented Jul 11, 2014 at 10:44