40
votes
Word order in German. Shouldn't Duolingo accept this answer?
The word order
Ich schlafe im Auto in meiner Pause.
sounds odd to me as a native speaker. The reason is that if time and place are placed after the verb, time comes first. This rule applies if there ...
- 14.1k
22
votes
Accepted
Word order in German. Shouldn't Duolingo accept this answer?
Your sentence
Ich schlafe im Auto in meiner Pause.
is totally fine.
I really don't know, why Duolingo would flag it as wrong. You're right: there is nothing wrong with your word order since German ...
- 7,566
20
votes
Accepted
What accounts for this word order?
Ich werde tun is incorrect because there is an object missing.
A way to correct this is to add a prounoun, for example a das:
Das werde ich tun.
Now, in spoken German it is possible to omit a ...
- 14.1k
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).
"...
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15
votes
Accepted
Order of words in a question: "Kann mir jemand..."
The secret is: Pronoun before noun
Kann Peter Klaus helfen?
Normal word order. Peter is subject, Klaus is object, so Peter helps Klaus.
Kannst du Klaus helfen?
Still normal word order. ...
- 38.7k
15
votes
Difference between two possibilities for a warning label
The typical German instruction manual idiom would be:
Nur bei Stillstand des Fahrzeugs zurücksetzen.
Your first variant wenn angehalten would imply to a German reader that the tripmeter itself had ...
- 3,047
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 ...
- 17.4k
13
votes
Is putting an adverbial after the non-finite verb okay?
Neither sentence is wrong. German word order is rather flexible, and while there is a tendency to have the second part of a split verb at the end, it isn't always the case. Possible reasons for ...
- 19.7k
13
votes
Is putting an adverbial after the non-finite verb okay?
The sentence is correct. While it is much more common to have the verb at the end, in this particular case there is an emphasis on the need to return, while the destination is rather a side ...
- 19k
13
votes
Why is the verb in 3rd position?
The verb is still in second position.
Sogar is a particle which modifies the subsequent part of the sentence. So it should be regarded as
[Sogar meine Tante] [hatte] [einen Ausdruck].
This is the ...
- 17.8k
12
votes
Accepted
Word order for "los" in "Was ist denn hier los?"
los is a regular adjective meaning off (in the sense of unleashed or detached). The basic idiomatic expression using los is the following sentence:
Etwas ist los.
Something is unleashed/moving (...
- 2,491
12
votes
Accepted
"gern" and "nicht gern" position
Think differently: It's not about placing gern "on either side" of the object, the basic rule is that adverbs that modify other parts of the sentence ("nicht", "auch", ...) are placed directly in ...
- 6,986
12
votes
Accepted
When does “haben” push “nicht” to the end of the sentence?
What Thorsten Link wrote is correct, but I like to give another example on how to place the nicht. I give a bit too literal translations to emphasize it.
(And a note on Examen: it's Prüfung, always. ...
- 50.2k
12
votes
Accepted
Separable verbs: “hängt von … ab” or “hängt ab von …”
This grammar feature is called prepositional phrase in the Nachfeld, and it's not restricted to separable verbs (though it's easier to notice with separable verbs).
Basically, when you have a long ...
- 6,986
12
votes
“Ich sah fünf Flugzeuge abheben.” – How to transform to the perfect tense?
Transforming the following sentence:
Ich sah fünf Flugzeuge abheben.
to perfect yields:
Ich habe fünf Flugzeuge abheben sehen.
The rule is that if a perfect participle (Partizip II) follows an ...
- 14.1k
12
votes
Can this word order be rearranged?
The idea of keeping the finite verb and participles/infinitives together does not apply here, as the infinitive clause does not belong closely to the finite verb. It's an object.
Dann bekam er die ...
- 50.2k
12
votes
Accepted
Is the sentence "Er trifft seine Mitbewohner im Café jeden Tag" wrong ? Why?
It's marked because of word order. In general, out of order items are allowed in German but they appear emphasised that way. So it's not wrong. Just odd.
In particular, German allows you to put one ...
- 50.2k
11
votes
Accepted
Confusing word order and cases in a line from the Spiegel
Welcome to the wonderful German world of free word order and inserted relative clauses! So perfect that not even Germans do it right all the time (even if they're in the Spiegel).
in dem Wladimir ...
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11
votes
Accepted
Die kleine Raupe Nimmersatt
To be precise, "Die kleine Raupe Nimmersatt" doesn't translate to "The very hungry caterpillar". The English title is the original one, and the German one is a translation.
I'd say the translator ...
- 19k
10
votes
Accepted
Position of “etwas” in “Kann ich in Berlin etwas kaufen?”
Both word orders are correct and only slightly differ in emphasis: Whatever you put first in this case, is slightly more focussed by the question (at least that’s my impression, even native speakers ...
- 21.7k
10
votes
Accepted
When to use “ist es” and when “es ist”?
In a German "Hauptsatz" (main clause), the flexed verb goes in the second position – counting grammatical units, not words.
Both of your examples follow this pattern:
[Es] [ist] [eine Katze].
...
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10
votes
Accepted
Ist »,also ,« schechter Schreibstil?
Die Kommas gehören unabhängig von der Wortstellung dort nicht hin.
Folgende Möglichkeiten:
Dir hat der neue Film also nicht gefallen?
Also hat dir der neue Film nicht gefallen?
Der neue Film hat dir ...
- 266
10
votes
Accepted
Tensed verb preceding infinitive verb in modal relative clauses?
The reason they put the sentence in this order is a pun with a very common German proverb of unknown origin:
Was du heute kannst besorgen, das verschiebe nicht auf morgen.
The word order was ...
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10
votes
Bevorzugte Reihenfolge bei Adjektiven
Es gibt zwei Sorten von Adjektivreihungen: gleichwertige und ungleichwertige.
Gleichwertige Adjektive sind solche, die unabhängig voneinander verwendet werden können. Keines bildet mit dem Substantiv ...
- 38.3k
10
votes
Accepted
"Es ist schön hier." What are the differences when changing only the word order
The difference is not in meaning, but in emphasis.
Schön ist es hier = "Wow, nice place!"
This emphasizes the pleasantness of the place as opposed to other qualities, such as expensiveness of a ...
- 14.2k
10
votes
Accepted
Where should I use "bitte" in imperative sentences?
(1) Bitte mach das Fenster zu! / Bitte füll das Formular aus!
(2) Mach bitte das Fenster zu! / Füll bitte das Formular aus!
(3) Mach das Fenster bitte zu! / Füll das Formular bitte aus!
All are ...
- 15.4k
10
votes
Order of locations?
Same order. Usually one would not include the state, like "Heidelberg, Germany", because we don't have that many city names that exist multiple times. But if they do, you would write it in brackets:
...
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10
votes
Order of locations?
The short answer is: other than in the USA, where it is common to add to names of towns and other inhabited places an abbreviation to indicate the federal state, e.g.
Milan (OH)
Paris (MS)
Stuttgart (...
- 30.9k
10
votes
Accepted
The order of dative and accusative in a sentence
You already stated the rule: The dative object precedes the accusative object (not subject), except if the accusative object is a personal pronoun. In this case the pronoun goes first.
So:
Ich ...
- 14.1k
10
votes
Accepted
Werden untergeordnete Nebensätze seltener?
Die Beispiele können nicht einheitlich betrachtet werden. Es handelt sich um ganz unterschiedliche Erscheinungen. Beispiel 1 enthält nach meiner Ansicht nicht einmal einen Nebensatz.
Beispiel 1: Es ...
- 7,648
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