@Astrum what a wide field - we do not have the -ing form in German so we make this by different means, e.g. "Während der Suche nach einer Wohnung...", "Auf der Suche nach...", "beim Suchen", "Als er eine Wohnung suchte,...", "Zur Wohnungssuche..."- plenty of context-dependent possibilites!
@Takkat we do have this -ing form (it's just the present participle as @Astrum pointed out). We just don't usually use it for introductory subclauses like that (it's grammatically possible, but sounds very awkward.)
what we don't have is the gerund (which coincides with the -ing form in english)
@Takkat (cc: @Gigili ) Whether a (short) answer to a negated question needs to include the negation again (or whether a positive answer agrees with the negation or contradicts it) is a great thing to confuse speakers of other languages. It's somewhat similar in German and English, though the above example shows it isn't always the same. Japanese can blow your mind with these things.
@NevikRehnel so if that sounds super awkward, what's a betetr way to say it? My friend had corrected it to something like "Wenn man eine Wohnung finden möchte,..."
@Astrum As @Takkat mentioned, a nice translation depends on the context. i.e. is the "when" meant as more of a temporal reference, or does it just imply the occasion
to elaborate, do you mean for example: "During the actual search for an apartment" (e.g. while perusing a paper or website) "While in the state of looking for a new apartment" (e.g. you want to move to a different area or must leave your current residence for some reason) "If you happen to be looking..." (e.g. providing advice to someone who might be looking for an apt. but you don't know for sure)
@Astrum all clauses of a conjunction are on the same syntactic level. in the given example, they're all main clauses, so they use main-clause word order
@Astrum if use on a main clause level, yes. technically it can be nested in subclauses, but that gets unreadable fast
Eine Woche im Ferienhaus zu gewinnen.
The sentence translates "Win a week in a Cottage", but my question is why there is a zu? Can the sentence stand alone without it?
Here's another sentence:
Zu wissen, wie Gerichte entschieden haben, kann sich auch für Sie auszahlen.
Can one just sa...
@DerPolyglott33 es ist eigentlich ein bisschen komisch, das zu sagen, oder zumindest unüblich in manchen Gebieten. Ich freue mich dessen == Ich freue mich darüber
Der Freund meiner Schwester kommt aus der Schweiz u. ist auch Philippino. Er kann auch Deutsch, aber es fällt mir noch schwer, ihn wegen seinem Akzent zu verstehen.
@Astrum i know what it means in every day speech. I'm asking what you mean in this case. I think our understanding of "butchering" a language is quite different
@Astrum again, i don't know what you mean by "bad" accent. I'm not trying to be pedantic, but i'm trying to figure out exactly what you mean. What makes an accent "bad"?
@clinch I'm just saying that I think it's bad. I just don't like the way mexican spanish sounds, when compared to spain spanish. It's not "bad" in a universal way
I don't speak Spanish, so I don't know how much of it is incorrect, or even what proper mexican spanish sounds like. I can only tell you what I hear from spanish speakers here
@Astrum okay, i understand now. It's always interesting to hear why someone thinks a certain dialect sounds horribly. I personally find Spain's Spanish to be awful, but that's just me and i'm certainly biased
Eine Woche im Ferienhaus zu gewinnen.
The sentence translates "Win a week in a Cottage", but my question is why there is a zu? Can the sentence stand alone without it?
Here's another sentence:
Zu wissen, wie Gerichte entschieden haben, kann sich auch für Sie auszahlen.
Can one just sa...
deutschsprachiger Raum
deutschsprachiger Raum