"Ist gestern was passiert?"
Translation:Did something happen yesterday?
48 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
Nope. The speaker is not asking >what< happened. They're asking >if< something happened.
The last person to touch the sentence is an account belonging to the Pearson team, so you would have to ask them. (See https://www.duolingo.com/comment/24066422/Interference-from-the-Pearson-course for some background on the Pearson sentences if you're not already aware of the situation.)
I think it's a mistake adding that to the accepted answers.
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Well, that's annoying. I came here because I actually did say "What happened yesterday?" and it was marked correct, and immediately I wondered about it, thinking that it was probably wrong. So, if we report their "correct" answer as wrong, I wonder what happens?
*edit: tried to report it, but didn't get that option. Sigh.
How can you tell the difference? According to the translation hints "was" is "what" as well. What part of the original sentence is the "if"?
In this case, "was" does not mean "what". It's actually short for "etwas" (something). Maybe it'll become clearer if you turn the whole thing into a declarative sentence. "Gestern ist etwas passiert." (Yesterday, something happened.)
If you want to ask >what< happened, you'd say "Was ist gestern passiert?"
so you could use "etwas" instead of "was" and be clearer? Ist gestern etwas passiert?
Ist gestern etwas passiert? is also possible, yes.
I'd say that both sentences are equally clear to a fluent German speaker, though.
Can we switch the word order like ist etwas gestern passiert? If not, what is the reason
Thank you! Is it generally accepted to use "was" in that way? It looks very strange to me.
In spoken German, "was" tends to sound more natural than "etwas".
Duden lists a few common examples: http://www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/was_etwas_jemand#Bedeutung1
In formal written German, you should stick with "etwas" though.
"Ist", yes.
"Passieren" takes "sein" instead of "haben" when building the "present perfect" equivalent.
- Something has happened = Etwas ist passiert
You are right about your sentence, when asking "what", "was" comes first.
But being "ist" the first word, it sounds just like putting "has" at the start, thus changing that "was" into "etwas":
- Ist was passiert? = Has anything happened?
- Was ist passiert? = What (has) happened?
From what I understand, "was" is sometimes used as an abbreviation for "etwas". I guess it's just shorter, and more common to hear spoken.
Can someone explain like I'm 5 how this sentence works? I've been looking at it and I have no idea how it translates the way it does and the structure of it :S
Ok, but it takes 10 to understand it :p
First, "passieren" doesn't use "haben", but "sein", when making the "present perfect" equivalent:
- Ist passiert = has happened (some verbs do that, especially when the action is somehow towards oneself - a change of state)
Now, it's a matter of word order in questions (that is similar in both languages):
- Was ist passiert? = What (has) happened?
- Ist (et)was passiert? = Has anything happened?
The tricks are:
- "was" can be used instead of "etwas" in this kind of sentence (gotcha!)
- German doesn't change "something" into "anything" in questions, it remains "etwas" in all cases.
Ah, so "was" here is not a "What..?", but a colloquial for "etwas"? Are "was" and "etwas" interchangeable?
Yes. "Was" here is a colloquial "etwas".
You can do that, but I'm not sure about how colloquial and acceptable it is.
Hmmm. I usually think that the subject comes right after the verb (when the verb is in its normal second place.) Under what circumstances would something else (in this case, "gestern") come before the subject?
Thanks, when I read it again now I suddelny understood how it worked grammatically. I will contuniue to use google translate, though :)
You should take christian's advice seriously. Don't use google translate, really! ;-)
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Can you suggest a good method to translate such a thing for sure? Peeking does not always help, and Google Translate sometimes gives quite correct translations. I usually use it when I have no idea of a translation. Afterwards I may ask others in a discussion.
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http://www.linguee.de/deutsch-englisch/
I find that helps me sometimes for expressions.
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@christian: thanks for the link, but dictionaries don't always work for expressions. Google Translate is far from perfect, but sometimes it gives you a new idea of the meaning or of the translation, and it is way faster. I use ABBYY Lingvo German-Russian dictionary to look up the new words and write them down and Google Translate for quick lookup of phrases.
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Google Translate has come a long way since this was written, and it correctly translates this now. For me it has become a good tool to have in the toolbox along with others like https://www.dict.cc/
https://translate.google.com/?sl=de&tl=en&text=Ist%20gestern%20was%20passiert%0A&op=translate
irgendwas is more like 'anything' than 'something'
Plus, it is a pronoun and here etwas is used as adverb
Yes, it'll work. E.g. a family sits at the table in the evening and a family member asks: "Ist heute was interessantes passiert?" (Did something interesting happen today?).
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One of the difficulties I have understanding spoken German is these shortened words. Is there a list of words like "was" that are shortened forms of words that are longer in written German?
Not as far as I know. See them more as a synonym and not as a shortened form, this could possibly help.