34
votes
Accepted
“Ab” vs “seit” for time periods
Generally, I – as a German – would say that things that will happen in future are composed with ab.
Ab morgen gehe ich arbeiten.
Things that began in the past but span to the present are composed ...
- 561
28
votes
Accepted
Correct way to write out a date range in German
Because the point of the point (pun intended) is to give the ordinal number instead of the cardinal number.
Interestingly enough, English does use ordinal numbers for days when writing "on the fifth ...
- 24k
15
votes
Accepted
Welcher Satz ist richtig? "Wie lange fahren Sie ans Meer?" oder "Für wie lange fahren Sie ans Meer?"
"Wie lange fahren Sie ans Meer?" could be interpreted as "how long is the drive to the sea?" as well as "how long will you stay at the sea?". Which one of the two depends on the context.
"Für wie ...
- 1,602
13
votes
Correct way to write out a date range in German
We use the point to get the ordinal, not cardinal number. Compare:
der 1. Platz (=der erste Platz)
Straße des 17. Juni (=des siebzehnten Juni)
That's why we must use the point in dates.
According to ...
- 8,726
12
votes
Accepted
Kann man den Artikel in „zum“ in diesem Satz weglassen?
Die Bedeutung ändert sich nicht, der Satz wird nur grammatikalisch falsch.
- 20.3k
11
votes
Quartale benennen
Wir nennen sie in der Regel "erstes, zweites, drittes, viertes Quartal". Das reicht vollkommen - und ist selbsterklärend. Bei "KWs" muss man dann schon wieder rechnen - oder nach dem Kalender gehen, ...
- 119
11
votes
This/last/next year/month/week in German
in diesem Jahr
in letztem Jahr im letzten Jahr
in nächstem Jahr im nächsten Jahr
But yes, these are fully interchangeable with dieses Jahr resp. letztes Jahr resp. nächstes Jahr in everyday speech ...
- 55.9k
10
votes
Accepted
Difference between “ständig”, “immer noch”, “immer wieder”, “immerwährend”, “immerfort”, “nach wie vor” and “unaufhörlich”
Probably, it is best to explain the difference with your own example sentence using all of the terms above:
Sie war nach wie vor in ihr Spiel vertieft.
"nach wie vor" has the meaning of 'still': ...
- 751
9
votes
Accepted
Can "vorhin" be used instead of "von vorhin" in this sentence?
It would make a big difference in terms of meaning:
"Lena ging mir voraus zum Ausgang, wo der Verkäufer von vorhin stand"
This refers to the seller. "The salesman from before."
(...
- 3,342
8
votes
Accepted
Does “um” at times show the accurate time?
It is wrong.
If you want to say what time it is, simply say
Jetzt ist es schon 20:00 Uhr
The "um" would be wrong in this case. It is used, when you talk about the time of an event
Ich gehe ...
- 692
8
votes
“bis spät in die Nacht” – why accusative and not in dative?
The reason is that "bis spät in die Nacht" is derived from "bis spät in die Nacht hinein", which literally translates as "until late into the night".
You see that the idea is to describe a direction (...
- 2,676
8
votes
Accepted
Datum und Uhrzeit groß schreiben?
Datum
Aus den offiziellen Rechtschreibregeln:
§ 57 Wörter anderer Wortarten schreibt man groß, wenn sie als Substantive gebraucht werden (= Substantivierungen).
Substantivierte Wörter nehmen ...
- 21.7k
8
votes
Accepted
No prepositions for German years?
Different languages, different grammar.
In English, a year typically does not stand alone. Most notably, if somehing happened in a year, this is rendered by using the preposition in. An alternative is ...
- 38.4k
8
votes
Imperfective Aspect in German "not since" constructions
Actually, your first example
Ich habe schon seit sechs Jahren kein Deutsch [mehr] gesprochen
was not wrong, but instead nearly perfectly idiomatic, even more if you had added the optional ...
- 61.9k
8
votes
Accepted
Er wird mich allein gelassen haben
Er wird mich alleine gelassen haben
ist Futur zwei, für das ich keine Notwendigkeit sehe, weil es kein zweiter Zeitpunkt in der Zukunft auf einen vorher (aber immer noch in der Zukunft) liegenden ...
- 27.5k
7
votes
In February, what does Oktober d.J. mean?
This is - as so often - a matter of context.
If the author writes about current events, yes, it could mean October 2016.
However, if the article describes something happening in, say, 1961, d.J. ...
- 24k
7
votes
Accepted
“bis spät in die Nacht” – why accusative and not in dative?
Specific answer
You have to be careful. I will first focus on the preposition in question, in, then construct a trickier example and finally discuss some general points that were phrased badly ...
- 6,702
7
votes
Accepted
How to say "By [year]" in German?
With a certain key date in mind, English tends to concentrate on the time span until this date - German rather expresses this as a from this date. All your examples would be expressed that way, as I ...
- 61.9k
7
votes
Translating American time zones to German
Dealing with far-away time zones is almost always an international matter, and therefore, time zone names are almost always given in English (because international communications prefer it) or in the ...
- 14.7k
6
votes
Accepted
How to use “seit” and “vor” with “verschwinden”
The sentence Die Katze ist verschwunden has two different interpretations:
On the one hand, ist can be the auxiliary used when forming the perfect tense. In that case, verschwunden is part of the ...
- 19.6k
6
votes
Why is “Mittwoch” not named after Odin in German?
It was the church that replaced Wodanstag by Mittwoch: Wikipedia Wochentag.
- 7,246
6
votes
Welcher Satz ist richtig? "Wie lange fahren Sie ans Meer?" oder "Für wie lange fahren Sie ans Meer?"
Both German sentences are correct, but they have different meanings.
Wie lange fahren Sie ans Meer? How long are you driving to the sea? – Here, fahren means the actual travel, and we want to know ...
- 426
6
votes
Must one use ‘wir haben’ to express the date rather than ‘es ist’?
Both
Wir haben (heute) den dritten Oktober.
and
Es ist der dritte Oktober. / Heute ist der dritte Oktober.
are common. There is no semantic difference between the two phrases.
- 10.4k
6
votes
Accepted
Am Samstag, dem/den
Mein Gefühl sowie der Duden [1] sagen, dass es in diesem Fall in der Tat
Am Samstag, dem 23. Mai 2009
heißen muss, weil nach "am" der Dativ kommt.
Interessant ist dabei jedoch, dass bei sehr ...
- 31.1k
6
votes
Am Samstag, dem/den
Duden Webseite, D32:
Bei Datumsangaben mit am kann der Kalendertag im Dativ oder im Akkusativ stehen.
Die Familie kommt am Montag, dem/den 5. September[,] an.
Vgl. Der Große Duden Grammatik 5785:
...
- 525
6
votes
Asking the date vs. the day of the week in German
In my experience, the most usual ways to ask for either the day of the week or the date are:
Welchen Tag haben wir heute?
Welchen Wochentag haben wir heute?
Answer would be: Monday! - The second ...
- 31.1k
6
votes
Accepted
German equivalent to "same as last time" for making appointments
You could simply say
Wieder um 4. (4 again.)
or
Gleiche Zeit wie gestern, 16 Uhr. (Same time as yesterday, 4pm.)
or just1
Wie letztes Mal: um 4. (Like last time.)
If you met already more than ...
- 7,608
6
votes
Accepted
How to write date at the end of a CV?
Neither DIN 5008 nor Duden state clear rules for that. So let's not talk about right or wrong but about style.
Musterort, den 25.08.2021
is kind of old-fashioned but ok.
Musterort, der 25.08.2021
...
- 7,608
6
votes
Why the time is expressed differently than in English?
It is true that German and English have a common ancestor, but to find it you have to go back far beyond the era of modern time-keeping. Therefore there is no reason to assume that German and English ...
- 20.3k
5
votes
Accepted
How do I say "once a week" vs. "twice (or more) a week"?
Ich räume wöchentlich mein Zimmer auf.
This is correct. Starting from here, there are several options to indicate other intervals:
n-wöchentlich
You could say zweiwöchentlich, dreiwöchentlich etc., ...
- 8,485
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