- Forum >
- Topic: German >
- "Hast du einen Freund?"
39 Comments
Achtung: Es gibt zwei arten von "Freund". (=Attention: There are two types of "Freund"). It can mean both friend or boyfriend. The same happens for feminine: "Freundin" is (female) friend or girlfriend.
My German teacher said it's distinguishable by the article: eine Freundin is "a friend of mine", meine Freundin is "my girlfriend". I still find it hard to do properly, and I've probably given some people confusing ideas about my best friend...
"Have you a friend" seems quite archaic. Not really used in modern day speech, though it is grammatically correct.
For many Northern / Scottish / Irish that's a very common way of speaking
No, it is perfectly common. Indeed, a few decades ago, anything else would have been considered an error.
Depends on who is saying it. The greater the command one has of English, the more likely they will speak it properly.
Currently still marked wrong 30/1/15, but the grammatically redundant 'Have you got a friend?' is offered as one of the 'correct' choices. My primary school teacher would be horrified.
It doesn't make sense. One of the questions was "Hast du eine Freundin" which I translated to "Have you a girlfriend" and was marked as correct. The next question was "Hast du einen Freund" which I translated to "Have you a boyfriend" but this was marked as incorrect. The answer they give is "Have you got a boyfriend" which seems inconsistent to me. Can anyone shed some light on this?
You can report it. Remember that humans make the list of possible translations... It is understandable that "Have you a boyfriend" was forgotten because although grammatically correct, people usually say "Do you have a boyfriend?". And "Have you got ..." is more widely used in modern English than "Have you ...".
On another note, it's funny that we (myself included) seem to care too much whether the computer marked us wrong or right. It's just a game! You know you got the answer right because you understood the meaning of the sentence, which means your German is improving, and that's what really matters!
Proper English has largely been abandoned. Here in the United States of America, we never really spoke it... duolingo seems to use a lot of American "slanglish", especially in the Spanish course.
so if i wanted to ask if someone has a friend not a bf how on earth can i ask them ???
You use the plural: Do you have friends? Hast du Freunde?
Since living 'polyamoureux' is still not that spreaded in germany yet, it is very unlikely to be misunderstood by asking the plural.
Maybe - as the equivalent to pal - you could ask "Hast du einen Kumpel?" "Kumpel" = pal
How do you think about this: in nominative case, der Freund means boyfriend and die Freund means girlfriend? Am I correct?
Thank you Luis 722 I also found that when asked about 'Hast du eine Freundin' I answered ' Have you a friend? it was pronounced correct, then when the male equivalent question arrived, I was told that that was wrong, yet I dealt with both questions in the same way. Odd !!!! I think you are perceptive in what you say regarding it doesn't matter if we get something wrong, we are still learning because of it - but - I seem to find that every time I log on, I have slipped back and must repeat a section before moving on even though previously, the wedge was full !!! It actually makes me laugh to see that yet again I must complete a wedge making it 5/5. Ho hum.
Of course I don't have a boyfriend yet because I'm WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY to wittle, as my mom sayse
