»Es wird Spaß sein« vs »Es wird Spaß machen«

Question

I was translating the English phrase:

It will be fun.

And I translated it as:

Es wird Spaß sein.

But the answer booklet had it translated as:

Es wird Spaß machen.

Would the use of sein not be appropriate here and why would machen be used over sein?

Thanks.

Answer 1

You can say

Es wird lustig sein.
^{It will be funny.}

Here lustig is an adjective in an adverbial usage. It modifies the verb sein (to be).

You can use sein (to be) also together with a noun:

Hans wird bald Pensionist sein.
^{Hans will soon be a pensioner.}
Mein Auto wird bald ein Wrack sein.
^{My car will soon be a wreck.}

You use this construction to say, that two things are equal (or will become equal if you use future tense) or that one thing is a member of a certain category. But (at least in German) you don't say, that a given action is equal to a fun or belongs to a category named "fun".

Instead, in German you say, that a given action causes (makes) a certain feeling or emotion, and the name of this emotion is "fun" (Spaß).

So, Spaß is not the action, but its emotional result. And so, an action, that is fun in English (i.e. the action belongs to a certain class) causes Spaß (a feeling/emotion) in German.

So, the correct usage is:

Es wird Spaß machen.
^{It will cause a feeling that we call »Spaß«.}