How Many Languages Can You Speak?

[kombiguy]

English, Latin, Homeric Greek, Italian, French; can read Gaelic and a little Manx.

 

[daniel f aleman]

I gave the book to him.
To him, I gave the book.
The book, to him, I gave.

 

[TheMotrCty]

I gave the book to him.
To him, I gave the book.
The book, to him, I gave.

and:

"To him the book I gave!" - Yoda

 

[Blox]

I know what you mean. Drives me crazy. But that doesn't show word-order flexibility. That's only when you have a past or present participle verb (sorry if I'm lingustically imprecise, but I'm not a linguist) that it goes at the very end, with the "helper verb" as the second element in the sentence. No other way to do it. Ich bin in die Schule gegangen. Ich bin nach dem Mittagessen mit meiner Mutter in die Schule gegangen. I think that's the correct word order for the elements... but my point is all the subordinate clause elements (When? With whom? Where to?) can't be put into any other relative order in the sentence. Any other order sounds weird... like "Ich bin in die Schule mit meiner Mutter gegangen".

Oder?

Nope

All of these would be gramatically perfectly correct German sentences:

Nach dem Mittagessen bin ich mit meiner Mutter in die Schule gegangen
Mit meiner Mutter bin ich nach dem Mittagessen in die Schule gegangen.
In die Schule bin gegangen bin ich mit meiner Mutter nach dem Mittagessen.
Ich bin in mit meiner Mutter in die Schule gegangen nach dem Mittagessen.

There may be others too, if I think about it some more.

What distinguishes IMHO German from English (among others), in terms of flexibility, is that in English you would have to keep "have gone" together, next to each other, while in German you can (and often do) separate it and would be able to have the "bin" somewhere at the start of the sentence or in it's middle, and the "gegangen" at the very end of the sentence. I don't think you could do that in English.

I did exaggerate a bit, though. German does allow some word-order flexibility, but much less than English or Slavic languages. Like, a present-tense verb has to be the second element in a sentence clause. "Ich sehe den Mann". Or, "Den Mann sehe ich". Never "Den Mann ich sehe". While in English you could say, "The man I see." Stilted, but correct.

You could actually say in German "Den Mann ich sehe" as you could say in English "The man I see". It would be equally stilted, and equally uncommon in use. You'd probably find that only in some older poems or screen plays, but it's not incorrect.

I can't comment on Slavic languages, because I don't speak any. I'll take your word for it if you say that in Slavic languages "anything goes"

Disclaimer: While I do have a lofty Mittelstufe 3 certificate from the Goethe Institut, I'm not a native speaker of German.

I am

 

[Blox]

No weirder than baked beans for breakfast...

I don't get it - baked beans are part of my favourite kind of breakfast.

 

[Blox]

When you say that there needs something more to come, like "Den Mann sehe ich. Den Hai aber nicht."

Nope, nothing needs to follow.

What would you reply, if I asked you: "Siehst du den Mann?"

 

[Blox]

You what????????

You might be able to say something like - "The man I see before me now is a shadow of what he was.." or something similar. I'm afraid: "The man I see", strikes me as almost unintelligible!

What does it mean?

I'm almost certain you could find something like that in Shakespearean plays or some poems.

If you disagree, I won't argue though. I'm pretty sure you know your mother tongue better than I do

 

[Blox]

Dr Seuss? Who is he? A Yank? We're talking about NATIVE English here ya know!

Hadn't I known already, this would definitely have given your nationality away

 

[Marek K]

All of these would be gramatically perfectly correct German sentences:

Nach dem Mittagessen bin ich mit meiner Mutter in die Schule gegangen
Mit meiner Mutter bin ich nach dem Mittagessen in die Schule gegangen.
In die Schule bin gegangen bin ich mit meiner Mutter nach dem Mittagessen.
Ich bin in mit meiner Mutter in die Schule gegangen nach dem Mittagessen.

Hey, a German grammar debate!!

Is this a hijack?

I don't know about your last two examples... they sound awfully strange (stilted) to me. (The first "bin" in the third sentence is a typo, right?)

OK, getting a bit more precise... What I was really trying to get at is the relative order of the clauses... in your example, the "when? -- "nach dem Mittagessen"; the "with whom? -- "mit meiner Mutter"; and the "where to?" -- "in die Schule".

In a "normal" sentence (your first example), the three clauses pretty much have to be in the relative order you put them -- other wise the sentence sounds Yoda-like, and is incorrect. See how weird it would sound to say, for example, "Ich bin in die Schule nach dem Mittagessen mit meiner Mutter gegangen. Hmmm? Sounds like an American talking?

In the second sentence, where you'd be stressing the "with whom" part by putting it first, the other two elements then fall into place in their relative required order.

And you did pretty much the same thing in your last two (unusual) sentences.
Oh, I see how you could say the last two sentences... the third one, maybe, if you wanted to absolutely stress "where to" and how you got there -- both of which elements would have to come first. And the fourth one when you maybe forgot the "when" part until you were done with the rest of the sentence. In both cases, the other elements then fall in in their normal order.

Except for your fourth (very unusual) example, the "bin" is always the second element in the sentence -- like a present tense verb would be. The way I think of it is, the whole sentence "revolves" around the verb in the second position.

If I am wrong, I'm gettin' my money back from Goethe...





.

the



There may be others too, if I think about it some more.

What distinguishes IMHO German from English (among others), in terms of flexibility, is that in English you would have to keep "have gone" together, next to each other, while in German you can (and often do) separate it and would be able to have the "bin" somewhere at the start of the sentence or in it's middle, and the "gegangen" at the very end of the sentence. I don't think you could do that in English.



You could actually say in German "Den Mann ich sehe" as you could say in English "The man I see". It would be equally stilted, and equally uncommon in use. You'd probably find that only in some older poems or screen plays, but it's not incorrect.

I can't comment on Slavic languages, because I don't speak any. I'll take your word for it if you say that in Slavic languages "anything goes"



I am [/quote]

 

[Blox]

Hey, a German grammar debate!!

Is this a hijack?

Probably - But what are we poor guys supposed to do, if there is no "Divers talking about German Grammar" Forum on this board?

I don't know about your last two examples... they sound awfully strange (stilted) to me. (The first "bin" in the third sentence is a typo, right?)

Yes, that's a typo - my apologies.

OK, getting a bit more precise... What I was really trying to get at is the relative order of the clauses... in your example, the "when? -- "nach dem Mittagessen"; the "with whom? -- "mit meiner Mutter"; and the "where to?" -- "in die Schule".

In a "normal" sentence (your first example), the three clauses pretty much have to be in the relative order you put them -- other wise the sentence sounds Yoda-like, and is incorrect. See how weird it would sound to say, for example, "Ich bin in die Schule nach dem Mittagessen mit meiner Mutter gegangen. Hmmm? Sounds like an American talking?

In the second sentence, where you'd be stressing the "with whom" part by putting it first, the other two elements then fall into place in their relative required order.

And you did pretty much the same thing in your last two (unusual) sentences.
Oh, I see how you could say the last two sentences... the third one, maybe, if you wanted to absolutely stress "where to" and how you got there -- both of which elements would have to come first. And the fourth one when you maybe forgot the "when" part until you were done with the rest of the sentence. In both cases, the other elements then fall in in their normal order.

Except for your fourth (very unusual) example, the "bin" is always the second element in the sentence -- like a present tense verb would be. The way I think of it is, the whole sentence "revolves" around the verb in the second position.

If I am wrong, I'm gettin' my money back from Goethe...

Don't get your money back (although you're not quite right on this)

All of these sentences are grammatically perfectly correct. None of them is "unusual". The last two may "sound stilted" to you, but they're typical answers to a question.

You are perfectly correct in saying that the location of each of the parts of the sentence (plus the way which words you stress, when you say the sentence) do make a difference in how much emphasis is placed on that part.

The fact alone, that you recognized that shows, that your German is pretty good, and that Goethe Institute should keep the money for the course

I could explain this with more examples, but I'm afraid that that would bore everybody else in here out of their minds. If you wish do discuss more German grammar, PM me

brgds