German questions

[hwhatting]

airetara already did some work on this, so I'll just provide idiomatic translations:

1. (If you wannt to carry water, you can use buckets. Just one bucket can contain/contain/contain/carry a lot.

Wenn man Wasser tragen will / Wenn du Wasser tragen willst, kann man / kannst du Eimer benutzen / verwenden. Nur ein Eimer / Ein Eimer allein kann schon eine ganze Menge aufnehmen*1).

*1) None of the variant verbs proposed by airetara here are really idomatic for me.

2. (But if you have no buckets or any other things/ things/ containers at all, you can also use your hands by making them hollow.

Aber wenn man keine Eimer oder überhaupt andere Gegenstände / Behälter hat (wenn du … hast), kann man / kannst du auch die hohlen Hände verwenden. (I wouldn't go for rendering the "making them hollow" part at all - hohle Hand is a fixed expression.)

3. (But they can only hold a bit.

Aber sie können nur ein bisschen / wenig aufnehmen.

@airetara - you don't seem to be a native speaker of German, OTOH, you're certainly not a beginner. How long have you been learning German?

[airetara]

@airetara - you don't seem to be a native speaker of German, OTOH, you're certainly not a beginner. How long have you been learning German?

@hwhatting - You might think it doesn’t seem like I was a native speaker of German, but I can assure you I am. But now I’m interested: What makes you think I wasn’t?

[azhong]

I've found some interesting today. I don't know yet what I can ask here, so I just share what I've learned.
1. In English there are expressions of "all books" and "all of the books". But in German there is only
"alle Bücher", without *"alle der Bücher".
2. In English you can say
What does the word correspond to?
or
What corresponds to the word?
, but in German there is, similarly, only one expression corresponding to the latter:
Was entspricht dem Wort?

===
Q: I saw the sentence in Linquee.com, without "zu". Is it also grammatical without "zu"?
Ich weiß schon Bescheid, du brauchst mir nichts [?zu?] erklären.
(I already know, you do not need to explain.

Thank you.

[Creyeditor]

1. There is also "all die Bücher"
2. Theoretically, there should be a sentence *"Was entspricht das Wort?", but this doesn't work, maybe because "was" cannot be marked for the dative case. If you make the question about animate entities it kind of works: "Wem entspricht der Bürgermeister?" vs. "Was entspricht dem Bürgermeister?"

[hwhatting]

@hwhatting - You might think it doesn’t seem like I was a native speaker of German, but I can assure you I am. But now I’m interested: What makes you think I wasn’t?

Oh, sorry.
It was mostly the way you translated "carry water". But maybe that's just a question of different idiolects.

[hwhatting]

Q: I saw the sentence in Linquee.com, without "zu". Is it also grammatical without "zu"?
Ich weiß schon Bescheid, du brauchst mir nichts [?zu?] erklären.
(I already know, you do not need to explain.

Yes, although it's a bit colloquial. Negated brauchen is on its way to become an auxiliary, which can have the bare Infinitive without zu. For the same reason, it can drop the final -t in the 3rd Person singular in spoken colloquial German: er brauch nicht kommen vs. written standard er braucht nicht zu kommen,

[azhong]

Which of (the later part of) the six word orders are idiomatic? Thank you.
1. Ich trat nach draußen, und es hatte schon da gelegen.
2. Ich trat nach draußen, und es hatte da schon gelegen.
3. Ich trat nach draußen, und schon hatte es da gelegen.
4. Ich trat nach draußen, und schon hatte da es gelegen.
5. Ich trat nach draußen, und da lag schon es gelegen.
6. Ich trat nach draußen, und da lag es schon gelegen.
(I went outside, and it had laid there already.)

[Raphael]

To be honest, "trat" isn't idiomatic in any context (at least where I live), and neither is "treten" in general for "walk". I'd say:

Ich bin nach draußen gegangen, und da hatte es schon gelegen.

[cedh]

An interesting detail here is that the position of da changes the meaning of the sentence slightly. Compare:

Ich bin nach draußen gegangen, und es hatte schon da gelegen.
(I went outside, and it had already been lying there in that exact place.)

Ich bin nach draußen gegangen, und da hatte es schon (da) gelegen.
(I went outside, and at that point in time it had been lying (there) already.)

[azhong]

An interesting detail here... Compare:

Ich bin nach draußen gegangen, und es hatte schon da gelegen.
(I went outside, and it had already been lying there in that exact place.)
Ich bin nach draußen gegangen, und da hatte es schon (da) gelegen.
(I went outside, and at that point in time it had been lying (there) already.)

I see. So I think I should use "dort" if I want "da (in that exact place)" in front in a explicit way?
Ich bin nach draußen gegangen und dort hatte es schon gelegen.

To be honest, "trat" isn't idiomatic in any context (at least where I live), and neither is "treten" in general for "walk".

Could you please explain more? My sentence was actually based on the sentence I had read in Linguee.com
Ich öffnete die Tür und trat nach draußen.
I opened the door and stepped outside.

And after your comment I looked it up in Duden and read this in the first definition:
- treten: einen Schritt, ein paar Schritte in eine bestimmte Richtung machen

Ich bin nach draußen gegangen, und da hatte es schon gelegen.

May I ask more about the word order?
Would the word order need to be changed if I replace "es" with "alles" and "die Katze" (the cat)?
Ich bin nach draußen gegangen, und da hatte alles schon gelegen.
Ich bin nach draußen gegangen, und da hatte die Katze schon gelegen.
(I'm particularly unsure about the position of "schon". Is it idiomatic to say
"Ich bin nach draußen gegangen, und da hatte schon es gelegen.
Ich bin nach draußen gegangen, und da hatte schon alles gelegen.
Ich bin nach draußen gegangen, und da hatte schon die Katze gelegen."?)

Thank you.

[hwhatting]

Ich bin nach draußen gegangen und dort hatte es schon gelegen.

That works.

To be honest, "trat" isn't idiomatic in any context (at least where I live), and neither is "treten" in general for "walk".

Could you please explain more? My sentence was actually based on the sentence I had read in Linguee.com
Ich öffnete die Tür und trat nach draußen.
I opened the door and stepped outside.

And after your comment I looked it up in Duden and read this in the first definition:
- treten: einen Schritt, ein paar Schritte in eine bestimmte Richtung machen

It's very bookish, nobody talks this way, but you may find it in literature.

Ich bin nach draußen gegangen, und da hatte es schon gelegen.

May I ask more about the word order?
Would the word order need to be changed if I replace "es" with "alles" and "die Katze" (the cat)?
Ich bin nach draußen gegangen, und da hatte alles schon gelegen.
Ich bin nach draußen gegangen, und da hatte die Katze schon gelegen.

These sentences are ok.

(I'm particularly unsure about the position of "schon". Is it idiomatic to say
"Ich bin nach draußen gegangen, und da hatte schon es gelegen.
Ich bin nach draußen gegangen, und da hatte schon alles gelegen.
Ich bin nach draußen gegangen, und da hatte schon die Katze gelegen."?)

None of these are correct. schon needs to come between the subject and gelegen.

[azhong]

Q: What's the difference in German between "wenig + Uncountable noun" and "ein wenig + Uncountable noun"? E.g.,

Ich habe wenig Kaffee.
Ich habe ein wenig Kaffee.

Aber die beide Hände können nur wenig Wasser aufnehmen.
Aber die beide Hände können nur ein wenig Wasser aufnehmen.

(I think "ein wenig" corresponds to "a little". Does "wenig" corresponds to "little", with the connotation of negation?)

A related post here in "English Questions".

===
I've read the sentence on the internet. Shouldn't it be "wenige" since it modifies "Autos"?
Erfreulicherweise parkten nur wenig Autos am Startpunkt des Wanderweges.
(Fortunately there were only a few cars parked at the starting point of the trail.

Thank you.

[Raphael]

===
I've read the sentence on the internet. Shouldn't it be "wenige" since it modifies "Autos"?
Erfreulicherweise parkten nur wenig Autos am Startpunkt des Wanderweges.
(Fortunately there were only a few cars parked at the starting point of the trail.

Thank you.

Yes, you're completely right on that.

[Raphael]

Hm, not sure about wenig/ein wenig. To some extent, I'd say that with "wenig", the focus is on the fact that you have little of the thing in question, while with "ein wenig", the focus is more on the fact that you do have some of it. But others might disagree.

[azhong]

To begin with, thank you for your regular help, Raphael.

To some extent, I'd say that with "wenig", the focus is on the fact that you have little of the thing in question ...

If so, the sentence doesn't make sense, does it?

2. Könntest du mir bitte nur wenig Essen geben?

In the sentence, the "wenig", or "nur wenig" can never imply a connotation of negation, am I right? And this sentences is from a native speaker. It's mainly how I've deduced that "wenig" still means "a little", not "little". I am sure, though.

[Raphael]

Not sure. My impression is that in your sample sentence, the speaker might want to avoid getting too much food.

[azhong]

Not sure. My impression is that in your sample sentence, the speaker might want to avoid getting too much food.

Yes, you are right. I've understood better both "little" in English and "wenig" in German.

Again, thank you, Raphael.

[Travis B.]

Not sure. My impression is that in your sample sentence, the speaker might want to avoid getting too much food.

Yes, you are right. I've understood better both "little" in English and "wenig" in German.

Again, thank you, Raphael.

Note that "a little" in English in this context can have the same meaning. For instance, I would read the following, which is how (given my limited German) I would directly translate this German sentence:

Could you give me just a little food?

in the same exact manner. Note that in English it is just (which is how I would translate StG nur) which gives it the meaning Raphael gives to the German above.

[Raholeun]

With respect to a Nina Hagen-type of character, I have heard the term verballerte Tante. I took verballert to be a synonym for zerzaust, but looking at the dictionary entries for the former I suspect I might be wrong.

[azhong]

An unrelated question:
I've made a German-English writing exercise. In two of the sentences I intend to say something like, in English,

6. Books, I think then, are just like dishes.
7. what attracts one doesn't always attract someone else.

This is my sentence for 7:
▸7. Was zieht man an, zieht nicht noch immer jemand anderes an.

And this is the correction I received:
▸7.1 Was dem einen gefällt, gefällt dem anderen noch lange nicht.

But I looked it up in the dictionary and found
-noch lange nicht: not for a long time yet,

which seemingly is not what I wanted to say. Your comment, please?
Thank you.