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I would like to know how do those 2 words, stimmt and so, when used together, mean keep the change?

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    I love that there are 3 answers with 3 different translations of "stimmen" which are all correct somehow :D
    – JayTheKay
    Jan 17, 2020 at 15:38

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The verb "stimmen" means "to be correct". "Stimmt so" is short for "es stimmt so" or "der Betrag stimmt so", which means "it's correct like that" or "the amount is correct like that", or more verbosely, "This is the amount I intend to pay, you don't have to give me any money back".

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In German, "so" has different meanings:

  • like the English "so" - use it to exaggerate "du bist so schlecht"="you are so bad"
  • it can also be used to talk about a current state of something "behalte es so"="keep it so"

"Stimmt" means "right".

So when you say "It is right so" in English, you mean "keep the change of it/keep it like that" as you finally got the answer right, so you can keep that final change (for example).

Same in German - when you say "right so", the literal translation is "stimmt so" so when you say "keep the final change of the document/keep the document like that" which means "the document is right so", you can say "das Dokument stimmt so".

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    ........ Stimmt!
    – Christian Geiselmann
    Jan 17, 2020 at 9:23
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    @ChristianGeiselmann so so ...
    – Volker Landgraf
    Jan 17, 2020 at 17:02
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    The English stentences sound to me like false friend translations into English, i.e. never heard or would expect to hear "It is right so" or "the document is right so" in English. Are you an English native speaker? Or did you just try to 'mock-translate' the German sentences to make their meaning clear?
    – Frank Hopkins
    Jan 18, 2020 at 18:19
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    I also speak English. Nobody in English would say "right so" in the most cases. I was just trying to come up with a good sentence with "so" in it. Sorry for the unclarified stuff here.
    – PolarBear123
    Jan 18, 2020 at 23:44
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    "Make it so" would be an example where so refers to the specified state. However as we know naval/space and old form
    – eckes
    Jan 19, 2020 at 13:22
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You can say stimmt so or passt so. So meaning in this way and stimmen/passen means to fit. So you say, that the amount of money you give is fitting the price and imply you don't expect anything back, because it fits and there is no excess amount (then it wouldn't be fitting).

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