The sentence:
Es lag etwas Verwirrendes im Ausdruck ihrer grünblauen Augen, wenn sie verliebt zu ihrem Freund aufblickte, der sie erst vor knapp einer halben Stunde unvermittelt gefragt hatte: ...
I can’t seem to make sense of “erst vor knapp”
-
1It seems you also can't make sense of the shift keys on your keyboard. They can be used to type uppercase letters (which caused six orthographic errors in your German quote). I corrected this for you.– Hubert SchölnastDec 3, 2017 at 7:13
-
From your recent posts, it seems you are reading C. C. Bergius' "Das Medallion"? Feel free to give the source of the text you are quoting.– StephieDec 3, 2017 at 9:59
Add a comment
|
2 Answers
The whole expression you should be looking at, is: "erst vor knapp einer halben Stunde"
This means, that he asked her nearly half an hour ago or just under half an hour ago, but not exactly thirty minutes ago.
A similiar expression you might be coming across is "vor gut einer halben Stunde", which means something happened slightly over half an hour ago.
answered Dec 3, 2017 at 6:36
-
Thanks, great explanation. Could you also explain the meaning of vor in this context? I kind of want to say it roughly translates to “previously ” in this particular context, does that sound right? Dec 3, 2017 at 6:43
-
Here, in this context:
- erst = just
- vor = ago
- knapp = almost
- einer = a(n)
- halben = half
- Stunde = hour
I don't know, if this is good English, but I would translate this phrase this way:
just almost half an hour ago
The whole quote:
There was something confusing in the expression of her green-blue eyes when she looked up in love to her boyfriend, who had asked her just almost half an hour ago: ...
answered Dec 3, 2017 at 7:19
