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The sentence structure is:

I would like to talk about the food, wherein I will talk about it's apperance, advantages and disadvantages.

In such type of sentence, I tend use "darin". The translators sometimes shows dabei and sometimes wobei. I understand, we can't always translate English to German as it is. I am confused with these prepositions.

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  • I think part of the problem is using "wherein"; it's not clear "in" what, and that may be confusing the translator. I would just use a semicolon: "I would like to talk about the food; I will talk about it's appearance, advantages and disadvantages." Perhaps "I would like give a talk about the food in which ... ." This is a figurative use of "in" though, and German and English often don't agree when it comes to figurative uses of prepositions.
    – RDBury
    Commented Aug 11, 2021 at 20:15
  • @RDBury In case, we have to use "in which", then it will be wobei,dabei or darin?
    – Noisha Studieren
    Commented Aug 12, 2021 at 5:51
  • It remains unclear , what "type of sentence" you are talking about. You provide two main clauses, and offer a pronominal adverb (not preposition) to join them; none of the choices is convincing, and the English sentence seems to share this weakness already (even if talk could be a substantive as well - but not at the same time -, to give wherein a point of reference). Perhaps including a translation attempt would assist ro understand the question.
    – guidot ♦
    Commented Aug 12, 2021 at 11:06
  • @Noisha Studieren: I was trying give some advice on using the translator without actually answering the question. There is no simple rule for which English preposition corresponds to which German preposition, and that doesn't change when you put "which"/*da-* in front of them. I'm often unsure myself which preposition is correct, which is why I didn't want to give a full answer. In any case, I think the question needs further context to be sure, since the "in what" was not clear when you gave "wherein".
    – RDBury
    Commented Aug 12, 2021 at 21:46

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Without proper context, finding a good translation for that kind of sentence is actually rather difficult. So I'll go through two examples.

  1. Say you're a public speaker in a hotel giving a talk about the Nutrition in there and are currently in the Introduction of your topic.

Then, I'd translate the sentence using either dabei or wobei.

  • "Ich würde gerne über das Essen sprechen, wobei ich näher auf das Aussehen, sowie die Vorteile und Nachteile eingehe."

or, being a bit more formal:

  • "Ich würde gerne über das Essen sprechen, dabei konzentriere ich mich auf das Aussehen, sowie die Vorteile und Nachteile.

So "wherein" gets translated to "dabei", or "wobei" plus an indication that the focus of your talk is on its appearence and advantages and disadvantages. (indication marked in italic)

  1. Second example would be you being in a non formal context, e.g talking to a friend about the food in that hotel.

In this case, there are two ways to handle the sentence:

  • Translate it to: "Ich würde gerne über das Aussehen und die Vorteile und Nachteile des Essens [hier] sprechen." skipping the wherein
  • Or, if its in a floating conversation, just ditch the sentence and go on with the actual Appearence and Advantages plus disadvantages.

Using "darin" for "wherein" doesn't work with that sentence.
For darin to work, talk needs to be a noun.
Examples would be:

  • Ich würde gerne ein Gespräch über das Essen führen, darin (in that Gespräch) konzentriere ich mich auf das Aussehen, sowie die Vorteile und Nachteile.

While that sentence is proper german, I cant come up with a proper context for it.

Bonus points if your translation shortens "Vorteile und Nachteile" to "Vor- und Nachteile"

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  • Yes, you understood my context. Seems like both the prepositions are so close to each other , got to use them carefully. Thank you for clearing out my confusion.
    – Noisha Studieren
    Commented Aug 21, 2021 at 5:57

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