54
votes
Accepted
Is German a VO language or an OV language?
English is a SVO language.
SVO means: Subject, Verb, Object(s) in exactly this order.
But English is the only Germanic language with this word order. German and all other Germanic languages (Dutch, ...
- 125k
36
votes
How do German speakers decide what should be on the left side of the verb?
In English the topicalisation of declarative clauses is facultative, the subject is in first position, and there may be an additional item in front of it. While in German, declarative clauses are ...
- 63.6k
33
votes
Accepted
Use of the verb "bauen" without the preposition "an"
Both expressions generally mean the same, with a slight difference:
Wir bauen diese Schule seit einem Jahr clearly states that the school was built from the ground up, that is, there was nothing ...
- 65.6k
30
votes
Confusion with seinem and two masculine nouns in the same sentence
Yes, the sentence indeed is ambiguous, but no, this is not an issue at all.
In fact, most sentences in most languages are in (partly) ambiguous. Our brains just automatically resolve most of these ...
- 3,022
26
votes
Can a German sentence have two subjects?
Short answer:
No
Long answer:
These are the parts of this sentence:
die Wahrnehmung von Gerüchen
Subjekt (subject)
Note, that neither Wahrnehmung nor Gerüchen are subjects. The whole nominal group ...
- 125k
24
votes
Accepted
Mein Leipzig lob' ich mir!
Two things to note here. First, reflexives can be added freely to verbs no matter what their verb frame definition says. The construction is typically something like this:
Komm mir nicht zu spät nach ...
- 15k
22
votes
Accepted
The shortest legal German sentence
The answer to your question depends on what a sentence is. But this is not really clear. Wikipedia claims that there are about 200 different definitions of what a grammatical sentence is.
So you ...
- 125k
21
votes
Accepted
Confusion with seinem and two masculine nouns in the same sentence
You're right, both can be meant, son or plaster. Use »dessen« to remove the ambiguity.
Plötzlich wollte mein Sohn aber doch den Gips vor dessen Untergang
bewahren.
Now it's clear that »dessen« ...
- 16k
20
votes
Difference between "weil" and "denn"
Here is a helpful example of when you can use "denn" but "weil" doesn't really make sense:
Er muss müde sein, denn er trinkt viel Kaffee.
"He must be tired, because / seeing as he is drinking a ...
- 301
19
votes
The shortest legal German sentence
If it is about the shorteness, imperative works:
Geh!
If number of characters matter,
tu, üb, sä, iß (alt.)
would optimize your request (as remarked by Wrzlprmft).
- 30.8k
18
votes
Does deswegen have another meaning than "that is why"?
The sentence has a slightly different meaning from what you thought.
Ich mache Ihnen deswegen keine Vorwürfe.
means something like
I'm not accusing / reproaching you because of that.
The ...
- 19.8k
17
votes
Accepted
Is it okay for two “sein” to be next to each other?
I would probably avoid the long subordinate clause within the first subordinate clause, and say
Weil Einkaufszentren eines von wenigen Dingen sind, die das Leben auf dem Land weniger langweilig ...
- 10.7k
16
votes
Is German a VO language or an OV language?
In main clauses, German uses V2 (the verb is on second position), and that means VO most of the time.
German (V2 -> VO): Julia ruft den Hund.
English (VO): Julia calls the dog.
Latin (OV): Iulia ...
- 27.9k
16
votes
Accepted
What's the meaning of "Man weiß halt gefühlt nichts"?
I'm just a native speaker, I'll try:
The former. Although I would translate it to "It's like one knows nothing". For the sake of simplicity, we can ignore "halt" (simply).
"...
- 196
15
votes
Accepted
Translate "by" in German
Your assumption is wrong. You can't interchange the words "by, with, via, through" in English
The mailbox is with via through by the bus stop.
Be back with via through by ten o'clock!.
...
- 125k
15
votes
Accepted
When is it justified to drop 'es' in a sentence?
"Es" as a subject replacement (Expletivum) can generally be dropped from a sentence when it can be ensured otherwise that the verb is in the second (logical) position.
German, unlike many ...
- 65.6k
14
votes
Difference between "weil" and "denn"
The same distinction exists between for/because in English.
"Denn" corresponds exactly in function and meaning to the archaic English conjunction "for", which was common in early ...
- 241
14
votes
Accepted
Verb at the first position in "regular" sentences
To comment your examples directly:
Hast du ... gemacht?
Ja, habe ich.
Here the answer is just a short form of "Ja, (das) habe ich( gemacht)." and is used just for shortness in everyday language. ...
- 618
14
votes
The grammar about "Du bist der eine"
Eine is the indefinite article but also a count »one«, you have to add a matching noun in your thoughts:
Du bist der eine, der immer schwierige Fragen stellt.
Du bist der eine Mensch, der immer ...
- 63.6k
14
votes
Accepted
Does "Was machen Sie?" have the greeting meaning of "What do you do"?
No
"Was machen sie?" simply means
What are they doing?
And "Was machen Sie?" means
What are you doing?
Note the difference between "sie" (they) and "Sie" (you).
Side note: "Was macht sie?" (...
- 125k
14
votes
Accepted
Why does "zu" come at the beginning of the sentence?
In German, what number and type of objects a verb needs has to be learned. There are two relevant meanings of passen here, DWDS 1a and 1b.
The first states that a piece of clothing fits somebody with ...
- 26.5k
14
votes
What's the meaning of "Man weiß halt gefühlt nichts"?
Maybe you've heard about the gefühlte Temperatur, or in English the apparent temperature: The temperature that humans perceive can be different from the temperature objectively measured by a ...
- 19.8k
14
votes
Accepted
Why is the verb in the first position here?
This is not a verb. It is a noun: Das Laufen. (English: the running.)
But it's a special kind of noun. It's a nominalized verb. (German: Substantiviertes Verb). But this term is misleading. A better ...
- 125k
13
votes
Accepted
Is "Das ist ärgerlich" correct?
That's a shame / What a shame / It's a shame
are fixed phrases that are translated to
Das ist schade / Wie schade! or "Das ist aber schade!" / es ist schade
.
What a shame
could also be ...
- 8,557
13
votes
Accepted
Options for saying, "my number is"
Meine Nummer ist is indeed used quite often in German and not an "English" term at all.
So if you would like to stick with your relative clause construct, it would be
Meine Nummer, an die Sie die ...
- 9,608
12
votes
Two questions on one sentence from »Der Spiegel«
With different word order:
Die Bundesregierung kann nicht ganz sicher sein, dass sie einen Auftritt Erdogans in Deutschland verhindern kann.
The sie refers to die Bundesregierung. I hope that this ...
- 21k
12
votes
Accepted
What construct is “zu tun ist”?
"Ist" is the verb (more precisely, the finite verb) of the subordinate clause. Because it is a subordinate clause, the verb has to be at the end.
Es ist zu tun. "It has to be done.&...
- 16.2k
12
votes
Accepted
"Zwölfhundert" or "eintausendzweihundert"?
For years in the range 1100 to 1999 the "zwölfhundert" variant is common in Germany:
The house was built in the year 1980.
Das Haus wurde im Jahr neunzehnhundertachtzig gebaut.
The variant ...
- 6,148
12
votes
Accepted
"Respektiere jeder die Lage, in der er ist: so ist jedem gedient."
Answers:
Is 'Respektiere' in the imperative?
Yes, sort of, at least that is what it means. It is the Jussiv, a replacement form for imperative that uses Konjunktiv 1 as the verb form.
Jussiv is a ...
- 65.6k
12
votes
Drei Verben in einem Nebensatz
Warum 3 Verben:
Dürfen, Können sind neben anderen Modalverben, die in der Regel zusammen mit einem Verb verwendet werden:
Ich darf eintreten.
Werden ist ein Hilfsverb zur Bildung des Futur. ...
- 2,961
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible