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I have a question on how to correctly say 'how long is it until.../ how many days till.../ how many days are left till...' in German and which one is more common. For example should I say

how many days are left until mother's day?

or should I say

Wie viele Tage bis zum Muttertag?

or should I make a question with wie lange...?

thank you

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    Welcome to German.SE. Thank you for putting some context in it. The main problem to explain "what is better" is the intention of your english original. In your case: is it just a neutral question about the fact? And you want to know the number of days counted from today? (that is what I read from it) – Shegit Brahm Jun 17 '20 at 7:46
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If you're specifically asking about the amount of minutes/hours/days/weeks/... you can use:

Wie viele Minuten/Stunden/Tage/Wochen sind es noch bis zum Muttertag?

If you want to make it less formal, you can also leave out the "sind es", making it

Wie viele Minuten/Stunden/Tage/Wochen noch bis zum Muttertag?

If you want to make it even less formal (and potentially gramatically incorrect), you can even leave out "zum", making it

Wie viele Minuten/Stunden/Tage/Wochen noch bis Muttertag?

(I'd advise against using that, as it's somewhat common, but not very educated to say it like that)

If you do not care about the exact time or time format, you can also leave that out:

Wie lange noch bis zum Muttertag?

The answer will then usually be automatically adapted to the timeframe: If you're waiting for a birthday close to midnight, the answer will be in seconds or minutes. If you're asking about mothers day, the answer will most likely be in days or weeks.

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There are different ways of saying this correctly.

  1. "Wie viele Tage sind es noch bis zum Muttertag?"

  2. "Wie viele Tage dauert es noch bis zum Muttertag?"

It is rather unusual to say:

"Wie viele Tage sind noch übrig bis zum Muttertag?" That would be the literal translation of your suggestion: "how many days are left until mother's day?"

Funny side fact. In order to express the number of time units until a certain event takes place, it is especially for children usual to say: "Wieviel mal noch schlafen bis Heiligabend?" - "How many nights left until christmas eve"?

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    How does this actually answer the OPs quesiton? – πάντα ῥεῖ Jun 17 '20 at 10:54
  • @πάνταῥεῖ How doesn't it? Both questions (how to say it and which one is more common) are comprehensibly adressed. – amadeusamadeus Jun 17 '20 at 15:01
  • @amadeusamadeus Where does the answer refer to "or should I make a question with wie lange...?" (which is of course possible)? – πάντα ῥεῖ Jun 17 '20 at 15:04
  • @πάνταῥεῖ The sentence which contains the block quotes starts with For example should I say and is ended by '...'. The scope of the actual question is stated before and more general. – amadeusamadeus Jun 17 '20 at 15:10
  • I've never heard the second variant - if you use dauern it must be Wie lange dauert es noch bis ... – Stef Jun 17 '20 at 18:36

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