German questions

[Raphael]

Sorry, the correction is right. "Noch lange nicht" has several meanings depending on context. In this context, I'd translate it as something like "not necessarily" or "not at all".

[hwhatting]

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.

Adding to what Raphael said:
1) Concerning anziehen, you misconstrued it in German - "one" is the object here, so it should be: was den einen anzieht, zieht den anderen noch lange nicht an. But the construction with anziehen isn't very idiomatic, the propposed version with gefallen is better.
2) I guess the correction to noch lange nicht was triggered by the noch in your German attempt "*nicht noch immer"; the straight translation nicht immer would have been idiomatic as well: gefällt nicht immer dem anderen.

[azhong]

In the German sentence translated by Google Translate, is the usage of "sitzend" (or "sitzend in der Absicht") correct? If yes, could you please explain the usage for me or just show me some similar expressions? Thank you.

Einmal aß ich mein Abendessen auf dem Dach sitzend in der Absicht, das Geheimnis der Dunkelheit zu lüften, indem ich den Gesprächen zwischen dem Mond und den Sternen lauschte.
(Once I ate my dinner sitting on the roof, intending to solve the mystery of darkness by listening to the conversations between the moon and the stars.

I only know the usage of a Ving as an adjective before a noun, e.g. (possibly wrong) "der setzende Mann" (the sitting man).

[hwhatting]

The usage in the Google translation is normal, if a bit literary.

(possibly wrong) "der sitzende*1) Mann" (the sitting man).

*1) setzen is "to set, to put"; sich setzen means to sit down

[Linguoboy]

(possibly wrong) "der sitzende*1) Mann" (the sitting man).

*1) setzen is "to set, to put"; sich setzen means to sit down

German (like English) has a number of these transitive/intransitive pairs. In English, the distinction is often lost in colloquial speech, but it is still strictly maintained in Standard German. (In some dialects, you may still hear "set yourself down", but most speakers I know would say "sit yourself", if they used a reflexive pronoun at all.)

Here's a very comprehensive overview of the German pairs: https://resources.german.lsa.umich.edu/ ... enstellen/.

[azhong]

Is it possible to tell me a guideline when I should NOT use the "haben + PP" form to express the simple paste tense in German? It seems I've received similar corrections for times. Thank you.

Gestern abend habe ich auf dem Dach gesessen und den Himmel angesehen. Es gab auf meinem Dach keinen schönen Garten zu sehen. (hatte...gegeben)

[Raphael]

Unfortunately, my own understanding on German is more based on instincts than on really knowing and understanding formal rules.

(It has sometimes happened to me that I understood certain things on an intellectual level but didn't (yet) really get them on a gut level. With my first language, it's sometimes the other way around.)

[hwhatting]

Is it possible to tell me a guideline when I should NOT use the "haben + PP" form to express the simple paste tense in German? It seems I've received similar corrections for times. Thank you.

There were discussions of this on the old board; I thought that they had been copied or linked here on the new board, but I can't find them now,
In any case, this were the discusssions:
2013

Re: German Tense/Aspect
Post by WeepingElf » Sat Dec 07, 2013 11:12 am
Although German is my native language, I find this question not easy to answer.

Of course, all the German past tense forms are cognates of the English ones, and a few centuries ago, each had the same meaning as the corresponding English one. But since then, the perfect has expanded its domain, and in colloquial German, it has almost completely ousted the Präteritum and become the general-purpose past tense.

In contemporary German, the Präteritum is essentially imperfective, much like the English past progressive: Wer ließ die Hunde raus? = 'Who was letting the dogs out?', and asks for a specification of the time when the dogs were let out, e.g. Wer ließ die Hunde raus, während ich auf der Toilette war? 'Who was letting the dogs out while I was to the toilet?' A simple, perfective 'Who let the dogs out?' would be translated as Wer hat die Hunde rausgelassen?

The pluperfect marks anteriority in relation to another event in the past: Als die Berliner Mauer fiel, hatte er bereits Zuflucht in der Prager Botschaft genommen. 'When the Berlin Wall came down, he had already found refuge in the Prague embassy.'

2012

Post by hwhatting » Thu Jun 14, 2012 10:03 am

linguoboy wrote:

Terra wrote:
In present day German, the only difference between the two past tenses is that imperfect is used with sein and haben and perfect is used with other verbs.
So the *meaning* is the simple past, no matter whether the *form* is perfect or imperfect?

In southern dialects, the perfect is preferred even with sein and haben. (Or as they tell learners of Badisch: "Des war isch schlächti War, isch gsii wär besser gsii!")

In the standard language, there are a small number of cases where only the perfect is acceptable and the preterite cannot be substituted. But as I speak a (southern) variety where the distinction between the two is entirely stylistic (i.e. preterite sounds more formal/literary), I couldn't explain to you what those cases are.

I'm a speaker of Northern German, so I'll try to explain how it works for me.
1) The Preterite is used like the French imparfait, for habitual actions and background information:
Als ich ihn angerufen habe (perf.), saß (pret.) er in der Badewanne. "When I called him, he was sitting in the bathtube."
Er wohnte damals in Hamburg "At that time he lived/was living in Hamburg".
2) The Perfect is used for past actions with present relevance and for expressing that the subject has experienced something or that a fact indeed happened:
Ich habe das Fenster geöffnet. "I have opened the window."
Ich habe dieses Auto für zweitaused Euro gekauft. "I bought this car for 2000 Euros."
Ich habe schon mal geraucht "I did smoke once."
Ich habe sie geliebt. "I did love her (but don't love her anymore)."
3) For individual (non-habitual, non-background) acts, both tenses can be used; in literary German, the preterite is preferred, especially in narration, but in colloquial German the perfect is more natural:
Literary: Er stieg ins Auto, fuhr los und rammte einen Lastwagen.
Colloquial: Er ist ins Auto gestiegen, losgefahren und hat einen Lastwagen gerammt.
"He got into the car, drove off and bumped into a lorry."
In dependent clauses, preterite is more frequent than in main clauses, e.g. in my first example one can also say als ich ihn anrief.
For auxiliary and modal verbs, the preterite is more natural than the perfect. Using the perfect of those verbs means stressing the special connotations (experience, stressing of fact); the perfect of sein "to be" is especially used to stress that the expressed state is not valid any more:
Du bist mein Freund gewesen. (lit. "You have been my friend" =) "You're not my friend anymore".
IMD, substitution of the perfect for the preterite is almost always possible, except for the auxiliaries and modals when they don't have the special connotations (2) of the perfect; the preterite can never be substituted for the perfect when it has the meanings enumerated in (2).

Post by Cedh » Thu Jun 14, 2012 12:27 pm
hwhatting wrote:...
That's how it works for me too, except that in speech (as opposed to writing) I would prefer the Perfect in almost all situations, even for habitual actions as in hwhatting's example 1b, and even in formal speech. While the Preterite of non-auxiliary/non-modal verbs is still grammatical in speech in all examples from group 1 and 3, it usually sounds awkward, and I'd use it only for background information (as in 1a) or when reading out loud a written text.

In at least semi-formal writing, however (including even something like a comment on a blog of someone I don't know personally), I would almost exclusively use the Preterite for group 1 situations though, and tend to use it in group 3 situations too. So apart from group 2 (where only the Perfect is possible) and modal/auxiliary verbs (where only the Preterite is possible unless a marked group 2 meaning is intended), it's mostly a media-based distinction for me: Perfect in all oral registers, Preterite in all but the most informal written registers.

I hope that helps.

[Linguoboy]

Thanks, H-W! I remembered the discussion but I was too lazy to go look for it.

[azhong]

Thank you for spending time finding this historical post for me. I've not finished it yet, and so far I have a question: What does the term "background information" mean here? Why is it a background information "he was sitting in the bathtube"? Background of what?
Thank you.

1) The Preterite [or the past tense] is ... for habitual actions and background information :
Als ich ihn angerufen habe (perf.), saß (pret.) er in der Badewanne.
("When I called him, he was sitting in the bathtube.")

[Linguoboy]

Thank you for spending time finding this historical post for me. I've not finished it yet, and so far I have a question: What does the term "background information" mean here?

Here it refers to a situation which was already in progress when another event of shorter duration took place. Ich habe ihn angerufen is instantaneous. (Well, you could also have called him repeatedly over a period of time, but in the absence of additional information, the assumption is that you just called out once.) By contrast, er saß in der Badewanne is ongoing. If you think in cinematic terms, a director would probably give you an establishing shot of the man in the bathtub for several seconds or more before cutting to the person calling him and then back to the man to show his reaction.

You can draw a rough parallel to the advice Mark was giving you about using articles in English. In both cases you have a contrast between elements which are in the background or just assumed to be present and other elements which are more transient or noteworthy. (Note that here in German--as in English--you don't have to introduce Badewanne/bathtub before using the definite article with it because it's just something assumed to be present in a domestic scene.)

Other examples:
Während ich schlief, hat er sich aus meiner Wohnung geschlichen. "While I was sleeping, he crept out of my apartment."
Als ich da stand, sind mir wirklich Schauer über den Rücken gelaufen. "When I stood there, shivers really ran down my back."
Erklären Sie, was Sie gemacht haben, als Sie warteten. "Explain what you did when you were waiting."

[Travis B.]

The above has been quite helpful for me - I had no idea that the Präteritum, when used today in the first place, is primarily imperfective.

[hwhatting]

The above has been quite helpful for me - I had no idea that the Präteritum, when used today in the first place, is primarily imperfective.

That it's not mostly imperfective in English, OTOH, is something which trips up German speakers - we tend to avoid the simple past and overuse the perfect in English for perfective actions.

[azhong]

... we tend to avoid the simple past and overuse the perfect in English for perfective actions.

Is it possible to explain why it becomes so? It seems for me just to make the expression more difficult: With the perfective tense (have + Vpp) you have to move the Vpp to the last of the sentence.
What convenience does this change bring? To save the effort of remembering the past tense form of verbs, for a possible reason?

[hwhatting]

... we tend to avoid the simple past and overuse the perfect in English for perfective actions.

Is it possible to explain why it becomes so? It seems for me just to make the expression more difficult: With the perfective tense (have + Vpp) you have to move the Vpp to the last of the sentence.
What convenience does this change bring? To save the effort of remembering the past tense form of verbs, for a possible reason?

I was talking about German speakers speaking English, so there's no moving to the end of the clause. It's just that the use of the Perfect in German influences how we use the Perfect in English.

[Linguoboy]

... we tend to avoid the simple past and overuse the perfect in English for perfective actions.

Is it possible to explain why it becomes so? It seems for me just to make the expression more difficult: With the perfective tense (have + Vpp) you have to move the Vpp to the last of the sentence. What convenience does this change bring? To save the effort of remembering the past tense form of verbs, for a possible reason?

Common usage doesn't require a synchronic motivation. Yes, expanding the use of the perfect does reduce the number of irregular verb forms a speaker has to memorise. However, there are other means to achieve the same end, like regularising strong verbs. Moreover, the fact that the preterite forms are still in use shows that the memory burden can't be that onerous; all German-speakers still have to learn the preterite forms even if they don't use them as much.

It's worth pointing out that in this aspect German fits in with a widespread tendency in the Western European language area that appears to radiate outward from France (where the perfect has completely replaced the inherited preterite in speech). In the German Sprachraum--as we've just pointed out--expansion of the perfect is more advanced in the south than in the north. In Italy, it's the opposite; it's the southern varieties (those spoken further from France) where the preterite is used the most. In Spain, use of the preterite increases as you move both south and west. (In Catalonia, which borders France, the preterite is absent from colloquial speech; instead of generalising the perfect to all cases, it coexists with a paraphrastic preterite formed with anar "to go".) In English, the perfect is thriving in the UK (and Welsh and Irish have developed their own forms of it recently) but declining in North America.

[Travis B.]

In English, the perfect is thriving in the UK (and Welsh and Irish have developed their own forms of it recently) but declining in North America.

I would say that the perfect is very much alive in NAE, but that compared to EngE it is used less as a past tense and more as just a retrospective aspect (which mind you can be either perfective or imperfective depending on whether it is combined with the progressive), so that it appears to be in decline because it is used less in comparison (because forms that in EngE that take the perfect often take the preterite in NAE).

[azhong]

Ich weiß nicht, worüber er spricht.
(I don't know what he's talking about.)

Q: is there another grammatical expression where I can separate "worüber"into two words, a relative pronoun and a preposition? Maybe something like

Ich weiß nicht, über das er spricht.

Is there a similar expression which is grammatical?
Thank you.

[Raphael]

Ich weiß nicht, worüber er spricht.
(I don't know what he's talking about.)

Q: is there another grammatical expression where I can separate "worüber"into two words, a relative pronoun and a preposition? Maybe something like

Ich weiß nicht, über das er spricht.

Is there a similar expression which is grammatical?
Thank you.

There's Ich weiß nicht, wo von er spricht, but that's not all that different from Ich weiß nicht, worüber er spricht. Sorry, but "Ich weiß nicht, über das er spricht." is completely ungrammatical.

[azhong]

So far I don't understand this sentence structure
Ich weiß nicht, wo von er spricht.

How about this one? Grammatical or not?
Das, über das er spricht, weiß ich nicht.
(I don't know that which he is taking about.)