3

While translating a story, I came upon this sentence:

"Will you help me catch the troll?" she asked.

I translated it as:

»Helfen Sie mir zum Fangen den Troll?« fragte sie.

But 2 native German speakers corrected me in these 2 ways:

»Helfen Sie mir den Troll zu fangen?« fragte sie.

»Helfen Sie mir beim Fangen des Trolles?« fragte sie.

Now, I can see that "bei" may be indicated by the verb "helfen", since jdm bei etw helfen is one defined usage. But another is, jmdm. zu etw. helfen. So why is zum Fangen incorrect?

Also, what requires the accusative, "den Troll", to be the genitive, "des Trolles", in the second correction?

Improve this question
5
  • 1
    It might be worth mentioning that the English puts the request as a question while the translations use an imperative. To me, it sounds like you're being more polite in the English version. A similar construction does exist in German: Wirst du mir helfen, den Troll zu fangen? I think that would be closer to the original in tone.
    – RDBury
    Commented Apr 27, 2022 at 23:30
  • @RDBury, the translation also is a question, it's just using present tense.
    – Carsten S
    Commented Apr 28, 2022 at 6:03
  • @Carsten S: I didn't notice the question marks, but is the meaning the same then?. I'd translate it back into English as "Are you helping me to catch the Troll?" To me that's even farther from the original.
    – RDBury
    Commented Apr 28, 2022 at 11:54
  • @RDBury, my English is not good enough to answer that ;) In German, present tense is often used for future events, I think the present continuous does not work well for that, I am not sure. Also, I am not sure how exactly to understand the “will” in the original. Is that a future tense or just a polite form? How does it compare to “would” here? Anyway, “Wirst Du mir helfen?” sounds like an actual factual question about the future to me. “Würdest Du mir (bitte) helfen?” is a very polite request, “Hilfst Du mir (bitte)?” is also a request, and still polite. “Hilf mir!” would be rude or desperate
    – Carsten S
    Commented Apr 28, 2022 at 18:42
  • 1
    @Carsten S: That clarifies things some. English uses the present tense for future events as well, only not as much as German does. English can use the future tense to form requests, so "Will you help me?" and "Would you help me?" and "Please help me," are more or less the same. But the present tense isn't used like that; "Are you helping me?" is very different. It's so different that I was even looking for a question mark at the end of the German version, which is the only difference between a question and an imperative in German, at least for Sie.
    – RDBury
    Commented Apr 28, 2022 at 21:21

3 Answers 3

Reset to default
2

First question: I would completely avoid using "jemandem zu etwas helfen". As planetmaker commented, it's very uncommon, even antiquated.

In contrast, "jemandem zu etwas verhelfen" and "jemandem helfen, etwas zu tun" are both perfectly common, but they have different meanings. "Verhelfen" has no good 1:1 translation into English that I know of. It means a help that's vital to reaching a goal.

Würden Sie mir zum Fangen des Trolls verhelfen?

would be a viable question if the addressee had something like a particular set of skills or facilities for catching trolls, and basically it's mostly their help that would assure the catching of the troll.

The sentences

Helfen Sie mir beim Fangen des Trolls?
Helfen Sie mir, den Troll zu fangen?

do not have that connotation.

Second question: It's a general rule of nominalisation of verbs in German that accusative objects become genitives ("genitivus obiectivus").

einen Troll fangen => das Fangen eines Trolls (literally: "the catching of a troll")
das Rätsel lösen => das Lösen des Rätsels ("the solving of the puzzle")
jemandem ein Geschenk geben => Das Geben eines Geschenks an jemanden (dative objects have no clear rule like that in nominalization, in most cases, more or less ugly workarounds with prepositions are used. It definitely cannot stay in dative though.).

So if you decide to use nominalisation, like in

Helfen Sie mir beim Fangen des Trolls?

this rule applies.

Improve this answer
1

The problem is, that jmdm. zu etw. helfen requires etwas to be a target. (I would actually use verhelfen instead.)

Fangen des Trolls is no target, but a process (nominalization of a verb rarely describes a target), therefore beim is needed.

(Ver-)Hilfst Du mir zu einem iPad?

would match your pattern, since iPad is clearly a target.

Improve this answer
1
  • 3
    "jmd. zu etwas verhelfen": ja. Aber "jmd. zu etwas helfen"? Ich seh das in dwds in der Tat - für mich hört sich das jedoch falsch and und ist doch mindestens ausgesprochen ungewöhnlicher Gebrauch des Verbs oder Satzstruktur; möglich ist da i.A. nur "jmd. helfen etwas zu tun oder zu bekommen" (wie in der ersten zitierten Korrektur).
    – planetmaker
    Commented Apr 27, 2022 at 16:59
1

When translating the above sentence, fangen can be either be used as a verb, or it can become a noun.

In the first case, fangen is written in lowercase, no article is used when it is used with zu, and it can be combined with an accusative object.

This means that the German sentence is:

Helfen Sie mir, den Troll zu fangen.

If fangen is used as a noun, it is capitalized, it generally cannot be combined with an accusative object, and usually is preceded by an article. Combining it with zu works only in some cases, and the combination of helfen and fangen is not one of them. Instead, bei is used with helfen.

Because it is no longer a verb, an accusative object cannot be used, but it can be combined with another noun by using the genitive.

This means that the sentence becomes:

Helfen Sie mir beim Fangen des Trolles.

However, zum can be used together with verhelfen.

So a valid (although somewhat unusual) sentence is:

Verhelfen Sie mir zum Fangen des Trolles.

Improve this answer
2
  • Regarding the usages described here, which ones are specific to this particular sentence, and which usages are general to all nouns formed from verbs? And for the general ones, how can they be stated generally?
    – user44591
    Commented Apr 27, 2022 at 18:33
  • It is hard to come up with hard rules, because it mainly depends on the verbs involved.
    – RHa
    Commented Apr 28, 2022 at 19:38

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service and acknowledge you have read our privacy policy.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.