azhong wrote: ↑Sat Sep 03, 2022 11:52 pm
Is the passage grammatical? Thank you.
1.Wenn man Wasser hältst, kannst man Eimer benutzen. Nur einer kann viel halten.
2. Wenn man aber
überhaupt / gar keinen Eimer oder andere
Sachen / Dinge / Behälter hast, kannst man einem auch die Hände benutzen, indem man sie hohl machst.
3. Aber nur ein weniges können sie halten.
1.
(If you wannt to hold water, you can use buckets. Just one bucket can hold a lot.
2.
(But if you have no bucket or any other things/ things/ containers at all, you can also use your hands by making them hollow.
3.
(But they can only hold a bit.
- der Eimer
die Sache
- der Behälter
-hohl: hollow
Okay, the English translations are quite helpful. No, these sentences are not grammatical. But don’t worry, we can fix that.
Firstly, the German indefinite pronoun “man” is used with the 3rd person singular. For example “Die Frau geht, sie geht, man geht” (“The woman leaves, she leaves, people (man) leave”).
Secondly, according to the translation, you miss a “want to”, a “möchte”.
Thirdly, I’m not sure about your translation of “hold” - “halten”… I think in English there is an ambiguity between “hold, clutch” (halten, festhalten) and “hold, contain” (beinhalten, besitzen, bergen) that’s not there in German. Although I get what you mean when you say “Der Eimer hält Wasser”, it feels kinda wrong. The hands are able to hold something (halten), and I would even argue they can hold water, even though that’s an expression which would be rarely used in German. On the other hand, a bucket cannot, in my opinion. Furthermore, I think a better translation for “holding water” especially with a bucket, would be “Wasser tragen” (to carry water)
Fourthly, “make hollow” - “hohl machen” works. But German even has a word for that: “höhlen” - “make hollow”. But “die Hände höhlen”, I’d personally say, it’s grammatical but so old, like, ancient… (but I just discovered that apparently there is the expression “eine hohle Hand machen”, which means “wanting to be bribed, being able to be bribed”… who knew?
). But since you say “Wasser mit der hohlen Hand schöpfen” - “to scoop water with hollow hands”, I can’t think of anything better right now…
Fithly, the “überhaupt kein, gar kein” is a nice translation for “none/nothing at all”, but not necessary, but not wrong either.
Sixthly, in your last sentence, you tried to translate “a bit” and probably got confused. You can use “ein wenig”, or just “wenig”, or “Weniges”/“weniges”. The difference is that “ein wenig” and “wenig” are adverbial and describe how much the hands can hold. “Weniges”/“weniges” sounds quite old and formal, but IMO work, but also they describe the quantity of said water (“weniges”, “Weniges”) or things in general (“Weniges”).
All in all, I would rewrite your sentences as follows:
1. Wenn man Wasser tragen will, kann man Eimer benutzen. Nur einer kann viel beinhalten/tragen.
2. Wenn man überhaupt/gar keinen Eimer oder andere Dinge/Sachen/Behälter hat, kann man auch die Hände benutzen, indem man sie hohl macht/höhlt. (Note: in real life I probably wouldn’t say “keinen Eimer” (singular), but in general “keine Eimer” (plural). Like “Wenn du keine Eimer hast”, “Wenn man keine Eimer hat”).
3. Aber nur wenig können sie halten (Note: Formally correct, but I’d rather say “Aber sie können nur wenig halten”)
Last thing, in colloquial German it is common to hear sentences with “du” and the 2nd person singular verb forms (similar to English), instead of the variant with “man” and 3rd person singular.
P.S.: I cannot shake the feeling that “Wasser halten” sounds weird, but I can’t find a better option. If someone stumbles upon one, would you be so kind and let us know? (Or argue, why “Wasser halten” is perfectly corret
).
