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I saw this sentence in a DaF grammar exercise book:

Statt dass wir hier lange Erklärungen geben, sollten wir lieber mit den Übungen anfangen.

I found the structure very interesting, so I googled it. And I found a discussion on one of the language forums where a couple of people expressed their opinion and said that "statt dass" doesn't sound very good in German.

They recommend rephrasing it into "statt ... zu..." structure. So I guess it would be something like: "Statt hier lange Erklärungen zu geben..."

Is that true? Then why would they include it in a textbook for someone who learns German as a second language?

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  • Sounds bad style to me too... textbooks are not always the greatest. Maybe just take it as an example that they are not perfect
    – Emanuel
    Mar 31, 2013 at 20:43
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    But this sentence is from a Hueber textbook Großes Übungsbuch Grammatik. This company publishes a lot of books about languages. So strange that they don't pay attention to bad style.
    – stillenat
    Apr 1, 2013 at 13:41
  • I think it is grammatically correct but I'd never write it that way. I might say though.
    – Steffen Roller
    Apr 1, 2013 at 18:53
  • It is more recent usage. While it is still considered bad style, it nonetheless is correct. I recommend using the sentence using "... zu ...". If you are still learning German, it is helpful to first learn the "good style" and only later let it slip a little. That way, you can better understand the underlying rules.
    – TvF
    Apr 3, 2013 at 9:50
  • the "statt ... zu..." structure is veeerrry correct and sounds good or "anstelle, dass wir hier lange warten, sollten wir..."
    – john Smith
    Mar 16, 2014 at 19:10

1 Answer 1

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Using "Statt dass" would be quite the same as using "'stead of" in English. It wouldn't be wrong, but it would also be a bit sloppy. I would recommend "Anstatt lange Erklärungen zu geben, sollten wir lieber mit den Übungen anfangen." which would mean "instead of giving long explanations…".

Or, an alternative that would also be nice: "Anstelle langer Erklärungen" ["In place of long explanations [where the meaning of "long" would be in the direction of exhausting] …"

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    Depending on the word order stattdessen may also be a good choice.
    – 0xC0000022L
    Apr 6, 2013 at 19:58
  • Aber wieso sollte denn "Anstatt, dass" falsch sein?
    – Dan
    Jul 14, 2019 at 3:18
  • @Dan, es ist nicht falsch. Nur klingen die alternativen Varianten oft besser.
    – Björn Friedrich
    May 13, 2020 at 17:59

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