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- Topic: German >
- "Sie isst eine Erdbeere."
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Why is it she if "Sie" is you and if sie is also "she" then how can you tell the difference
There are 2 ways that spring to mind:
The first is that verbs are conjugated differently for different articles. In this case the base verb "essen" becomes "isst" to fit with "sie" (she). If it had been "Sie" (you), then the verb would've been conjugated to "essen". So by looking at the verb you can tell which "S/sie" is being used.
The second, and less obvious, way is that "Sie" is not just "you" but "you" (formal). The context of the sentence/situation etc. will often help differentiate this but usually in basic German language teaching, "Sie" is used all that often anyway.
Hope that helps :)
In the "formal you" case, would the verb also been useful to distinguish the article?
Actually there are 3 sie`s. sie they, Sie you formal, and sie she. pay attention to the case I typed them in. You can tell sie they and sie she apart by the word that follows them. For example, sie haben they have and sie hat she has. sie they and Sie you formal have identical words that follow them. For example Sie essen you eat and sie essen they eat.If there is sie they at the front of the sentence I do not know what to do but for the rest they stay their case no matter what.
Is "Erdbeere" m,f or n? as it is in Accusative, but so far I only know the acc of ein, to be einen. So what is the nominative form of "eine"? Or is eine both Nom and Acc for femininum?
Erdbeere is fem
Yes you're right, 'eine' stays the same in Nom and Akk. In fact the masculine form is the only one that changes in Akk: ein --> einen
It's really frustrating that Duolingo doesn't give any feedback about which sounds it thinks you are getting wrong. It is one of the few places where I find Rosetta Stone doing a better job. There you could at least compare audiographs.
With both, there are sentences that have been marked correct when I know my pronounciation has been widly off, but (like here) I have no Idea what is triggering a failure response.
People have reported that Duo‘s voice recognition system isn't good (in many languages) and some moderators have recommended users to disable those kind of exercises.
In german, those are both the same thing. They don't have two ways of saying it like we do; they just depend on the context.
They both mean 'a' or 'an' but they change depending on the gender and the case of the noun.
Eine is feminine Nominative or feminine Accusative
Einen is masculine Accusative
Check out: http://german.speak7.com/german_cases.htm or google German cases / articles.
No because that's a different "sie", you can tell from the verb conjugation. (See my reply to someone else on this thread asking something similar)
How do I pronounce Erdbeere correctly ? It seems to be the toughest word I have encountered so far, I just can't pronounce it
If i wanted to say 'she is a strawberry' it would be 'Sie ist eine Erdbeere', right? Would you have to rely totally on context to figure out whether I'm saying ist/isst?
Yes so listen in on the context, not the sound since there's no difference anyway
Is there a way in spoken german to distinguish between "she eats a strawberry" and "she is a strawberry"?
no, it sounds exactly the same. "Being a strawberry" being a rare situation, the context usually solves it. Furthermore: She eats an apple - Sie isst einen (Akkusativ) Apfel. She is an apple - Sie ist ein (Nominativ) Apfel. With feminine nouns, both forms are identical. Yes, it's tricky, but watch the context and you'll know what it's all about. We native speakers have do the same.
Erde means earth, and Beere means berry. Is a strawberry an earthberry in German?
Hey, it could be.If you think, I mean, imagine - strawberry plant - it "lays" on the ground/land so literally could be named as "earth-berry"..since no other berry is so close to earth..and dirt :D
What is good way pronounce that sentence? I having extra hard trying say Erdbeere
Excuse me, I think I misunderstood your question. "einen" is accusative of masculine words. But "die Erdbeere" is feminine. It needs the feminine article, which is "eine" in accusative too.
