2

When speaking about the price of something, I thought you always use genetiv.

But I saw some articles where it says "Der Ripple Preis".

Which one is correct? Or maybe I can use both.

If somebody doesn't know, Ripple is an alternative currency like bitcoin.

| improve this question | |
  • 5
    Do you mean Ripplekurs (rate of the Ripple)? For me, it does not make sense that a currency itself has a price. If so, both der Ripplekurs and der Kurs des Ripples are possible. Notice that Kurs is a noun and must be capitalized. – Björn Friedrich May 9 '18 at 6:58
  • 1
    Preis is a substantive and therefore should start with an uppercase letter (except in compounds as Milchpreis). For currencies Preis is somewhat unusual and Kurs is typically used. – guidot May 9 '18 at 6:59
  • 1
    @BjörnFriedrich Mit einer Google-Suche findet man tatsächlich Webseiten auf denen von "Ripple Preis" (sic!) gesprochen wird, im weiteren Verlauf wird dann zu "Ripple Kurs" (sic) variiert. Aber warum machst du nicht eine Antwort aus deinem Kommentar? – IQV May 9 '18 at 7:14
  • @IQV Jemand war schneller. – Björn Friedrich May 9 '18 at 9:26
  • 1
    Note, that Ripple might be misunderstood as a dialectal variant of (Schweine-)Rippchen in some regions. – guidot May 9 '18 at 16:38
12

As Ripple is a (modern) kind of currency, the same rules should apply as for ordinary currencies, say dollar or birr.

A good expression in German is

Der Dollarkurs ist gesunken.

You also could say

Der Kurs des Dollars ist gesunken.

which would be grammatically correct, but it sounds a bit awkward because it is unnecessarily complicated. When speaking of dollar, the usual way to say this is just the one above (Dollarkurs). However, for other, less common currencies, phrases such as

Der Kurs des Birr tendiert positiv.

would be more usual (as opposed to der Birr-Kurs). It just depends on the currency and the speech habits that have developed regarding that specific currency.

Some additional hints

  1. Note that "Kurs" is a word used for currencies where "Preis" would be used for other goods and services.

    Der Butterpreis ist schon wieder gestiegen.

    Der Preis landwirtschaftlicher Produkte sinkt zum Schaden der Bauern dauern.

    You do not say

    *Der Kurs der Butter ist gestiegen.

    although you theoretically (when insisting on logic rather than habits) could.

  2. Note also that "Preis" can be used in a different way, referring not to money but to other things "paid" (or given away, or lost) when getting something else.

    Der Preis des Lügens ist der Verlust der Glaubwürdigkeit.

    Meaning: if you lie all the times, people will stop believing you. You "pay" for lying with a loss of credibility. However, you cannot1 say

    *Der Kurs des Lügens…

  3. Note, thirdly, that in the two-word expressions cited in your question and in some comments, in German you obligatorily have to use a hyphen:

    • Der Ripple-Kurs [not: Ripple Kurs]
    • Der Ripple-Preis [not: Ripple Preis]

    Writing such word combinations without a hyphen (or any other special character but a blank) is standard in English, and therefore many people with first language German have started to thoughtlessly imitate this manner, but still it makes a bad impression of your ability to express yourself adequately in written German.

1 You "cannot" in a sense of: in ordinary situations of communication. Of course, technically and physically you can, and with some creativity you also could find situations where you "can" say this in a meaningful way, e.g. in a humouristic text or in poetry.

| improve this answer | |
  • 3
    Good sentences are: "Der Tomatenpreis auf dem Wochenmarkt ist stabil geblieben". - "Was kosten Tomaten heute?" You can also make up a situation where "Wessen Preis?" is an acceptable expression, but this would happen rather in a German language classroom, not in everyday life. E.g. imagine a textbook dialogue: A: "Der Tomatenpreis ist gestiegen." - B: "Wessen Preis?" - A: "Der Preis von Tomaten!" But in everyday oral communication you would rather ask "Der Preis von was?" (e.g. when the communication takes place at a loud location). – Christian Geiselmann May 9 '18 at 7:51
  • 4
    The term "Kurs" can be applied for everything sold via stock market. Currencies, shares, gold and even agricultural products like corn or butter. Therefore when talking about the stock market one could say "Der Kurs der Butter ist gestiegen". Allthough it's very uncommon in everyday language. – mtwde May 9 '18 at 8:40
  • 1
    @Christian Geiselmann: In addition to this I'd like to mention that everyday German tends to avoid constructions like 'der Preis der Butter'. You would rather say 'der Butterpreis (ist / die Butterpreise sind wieder gestiegen)' or '(die) Butter ist wieder teurer geworden.' For 'der Kurs des Dollars' it may be different as long as it is not spoken German. In a police report you may read 'die Tür der Wohnung wurde aufgebrochen', but when talking to a fried you will always say 'bei mir wurde die Wohnungstür aufgebrochen.' – Ralf Joerres May 9 '18 at 11:36
  • 2
    @Tomas: It's a general German construction. For example: "Die Transportkosten (Kosten des Transports) übersteigen den Warenwert (Wert der Ware). Der Schiffskapitän (Kapitän des Schiffs) nimmt eine Kursänderung (Änderunge des Kurses) vor. Der Regierungschef (Chef der Regierung) lehnt den Gesetzesentwurf (Entwurf des Gesetzes) der Bundestagsfraktion (Fraktion des Bundestages) ab. Die Gesetzesnovelle (Novelle des Gesetzes) zum Werbeverbot (Verbot der Werbung) stößt beim Oppositionsführer (Führer der Opposition) auf Ablehnung." – celtschk May 9 '18 at 15:46
  • 2
    @Tomas: You would ask: "Welcher Kurs ist gestiegen?" The verb "ist" cannot be omitted here. And the answer would then be "Der des Dollars". "Der" refers back to the "Kurs" in the question (i.e. it's short for "Der Kurs") and is nominative. And then the genitive "des Dollars" refers to that. Of course you could also explicitly answer "Der Dollarkurs". – celtschk May 9 '18 at 16:15
1

Proper German allows three ways to form the expression of "price for something", although, if you are talking of some sort of currency, "Kurs" would be the more appropriate term. I'll be using this here:

  • Der Kurs des Ripple 1

  • Der momentane Ripplekurs 2

  • Der aktuelle Ripple-Kurs 3

As you see,

Der Ripple Kurs

is none of them. So you can actually use the genitive to form such an expression, form a compound substantive, or couple the compound substantive using a hyphen.

  1. Genitive used to make the connection
  2. §37 Rechtschreibregeln, on Zusammenschreibung: E3: Dieser Regel folgen auch lexikalisierte, ursprünglich aus dem Englischen stammende bzw. aus englischen Einheiten gebildete Zusammensetzungen: Bandleader, Cheerleader, Chewinggum, Mountainbike, Bluejeans, Hardware, Swimmingpool. Whether this one applies here, is questionable. "lexikalisiert" is no attribute I would see with "Ripplekurs".
  3. §45 Rechtschreibregeln, in Schreibungen mit Bindestrich: E1: Aus anderen Sprachen stammende Verbindungen aus Substantiv + Substantiv, die sich im Deutschen grammatisch wie Zusammensetzungen verhalten, werden zusammengeschrieben; ebenso ist die verdeutlichende Schreibung mit Bindestrich möglich: Sexappeal (Sex-Appeal), Sciencefiction (Science-Fiction), Shoppingcenter (Shopping-Center), Desktoppublishing (Desktop-Publishing), Midlifecrisis (Midlife-Crisis)
| improve this answer | |
  • What about "Der Ripplekurs" isn't that the 4th way? – Tomas May 10 '18 at 11:04
  • Read again, especially second item. – tofro May 10 '18 at 11:31
  • I read again, I would say it's the 4th way – Tomas May 10 '18 at 11:39
  • The second item above says "der momentane Ripplekurs". Why would you want that twice? – tofro May 10 '18 at 11:42

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service, privacy policy and cookie policy

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