Learning German language: The German Learners' Society (MKII)

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Reply 1980

.snowflake.

Nope, Latin is the reason I understand cases, gender, number, tenses and moods.

good. i'm not going mad. In GCSE Latin, the pluperfect tense was always called the 'having been done tense'. So for my eng-german translations if I see X had done Y, i know i'm needing to use the pluperfect.

Reply 1981

Catilina

Original post by .snowflake.

'having been done tense'.

Wow, what a professional approach from a teacher :biggrin:

Reply 1982

najabri

Original post by Catilina

Wow, what a professional approach from a teacher :biggrin:

^^ Although, I wonder if that would confuse me with perfect passive participles as they're normally translated as "having been {past participle}". I think my teacher has the "time line of tenses" to differentiate between completed past tense, imperfect tense etc...

Reply 1983

Catilina

Original post by najabri

Yeah, I guess it´s always easier to go from a language with more complex grammar to a simpler one and not vice versa.

Reply 1984

grizzlybär

In German you can use six different tenses to express the historical sequel of action. In the moment you speak/write you are bound to the real time. It's this 'now' that constitutes your perspective.
perhaps this will help with the 'time line of tenses':
Nachdem wir die Pflaumen geerntet hatten (Plusquamperfekt) After we had harvested the plums, (past perfect)
haben wir sie gewaschen (Perfekt) we have washed them. (present perfect)
Dann mussten wir sie entsteinen (Präteritum) Then we had to deseed them. (simple past)
Jetzt sind sie im Topf und kochen (Präsens). Now, they are in the pot and cook. (present tense)
Danach werden wir die Marmelade in Gläser füllen (Futur I). Afterwards we will fill the jam in jars. (future I)
Im nächsten Sommer werden wir sie aufgegessen haben (Futur II). Until summer next year, we will have eaten all of it. (future II)

In German, we don't have a -ing form. If you told the story in English, would it be in the way I translated it?

Reply 1985

najabri

Original post by grizzlybär

We would omit the "have" in "We have washed them", otherwise I think it would still be the pluperfect tense? :confused:

We call the -ing a present participle and would use it in the sentence "Now they are in the pot and are cooking". You can use "cook" in the present tense but as you've already used "are", it doesn't make sense as it sounds like "are cook", which is incorrect. If you didn't want to say "cooking" you could say "we cook them in the pot".

The first future sentence is the right tense, but I think we'd change the phrasing a bit... "Afterwards we will fill the jars with jam" or "Afterwards we will put the jam in the jars".

Finally, in the last sentence I think we would just use "Next summer we will have eaten all of it" or "We will have eaten it by the summer of next year/next summer". :^_^:

I wonder how some languages cope without all the different tenses/verb forms.

Reply 1986

grizzlybär

'had washed' and 'have washed' are different tenses in German. 'had washed'- Plusquamperfekt (vollendete Vergangenheit) und 'have washed' Perfekt (vollendete Gegenwart), but I'm aware that, in spoken language the tenses mix happily all over the place. It's not unusual to hear someone say: 'gestern bin ich in München gewesen/yesterday, I have been in Munich' (in fact I'm not sure this would actually be grammatically wrong to say) instead of 'gestern war ich in München/yesterday, I was in Munich. In English, I have to use simple past with 'yesterday', haven't I?
I knew it had to be 'are cooking' but we don't have that form in German. To express that something is happening at the moment we use words like jetzt, gerade, im Moment ... und present tense.

Reply 1987

Catilina

Here´s a little challenge in case you feel especially confident about understanding difficult dialects :wink:

. It´s actually a yiddish song text, but it´s possible to understand most of it. (if you´ve got a bit of time on your hands). I put most words with a hebrew origin in red, obviously knowing german doesn´t help with those.

Oyfn pripetshik (stove) brent a fayerl,
Un in shtub iz heys,
Un der rebe lernt kleyne kinderlekh,
Dem alef-beys.

Zet zhe kinderlekh, gedenkt zhe, tayere (~precious),
Vos ir lernt do;
Zogt zhe nokh a mol un take (truly) nokh a mol:
Komets-alef: o!

Lernt, kinder, mit groys kheyshek,
Azoy zog ikh aykh on;
Ver s'vet gikher (faster) fun aykh kenen ivre - (hebrew pronounciation)
Der bakumt a fon.

Ir vet, kinder, elter vern,
Vet ir aleyn farshteyn,
Vifl in di oysyes (letters) lign trern,
Un vi fil geveyn.

(edited 12 years ago)

Reply 1988

najabri

Original post by grizzlybär

Yeah, you'd have to say "I went to Munich yesterday", or "I was in Munich yesterday". "I have been in Munich" works but somehow if you say "I have been in Munich yesterday" it doesn't.

Then there are always the colloquial ways of saying things... like people saying "In town" instead of "I am in town", and "gonna" instead of "going to".

Reply 1989

grizzlybär

why is it e.g. 'someone has lost their job' ? 'someone' is singular and 'their' a plural pronoun. Is it because you don't know the gender and by saying 'their' have them both? In German 'jemand' is masculine, so it's 'jemand hat seinen Job verloren'

Reply 1990

soulofanewmachine

Original post by grizzlybär

Basically, yes. "They" can be used as a gender-neutral third-person singular pronoun. I personally think it's fine and use it naturally quite a lot. But I have read that it's somewhat controversial and some people consider it wrong. Bah. It's better than writing he/she and his/her...

[EDIT:] Here we go: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they !

(edited 12 years ago)

Reply 1991

chickenonsteroids

how many words take the genitive? well not a specific number but general words used in conversation. I'm bored of things that just take the accusative and stuff

Even though i suck so bad at german one day i will convince my teacher that i'm really a champion when it comes to german

Reply 1992

.snowflake.

Original post by chickenonsteroids

the prepositions trotz, wegen, waehrend, (an)statt, innerhalb, ausserhalb all take the genitive.

Reply 1993

grizzlybär

Original post by chickenonsteroids

verbs that take the genitive: gedenken, sich erinnern, sich bedienen, sich rühmen, jemanden überführen

adjectives: des Weges kundig, einer Sache sicher, seines Lebens überdrüssig

prepositions: aufgrund, wegen, anhand, mittels, längs, entlang, kraft (seines Amtes), zwecks, trotz, infolge

Reply 1994

chickenonsteroids

Original post by .snowflake.

the prepositions trotz, wegen, waehrend, (an)statt, innerhalb, ausserhalb all take the genitive.

*adds to vocab book*

trotz - despite (how would you say despite this blah blah blah + does it make the verb go to the end?

wegen - because of

(an)statt - instead of

innerhalb - within

ausserhalb - outside of

Are those in the right context?