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- "Das Bier schmeckt gut."
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Note:
In Germany, it is common to say "Es schmeckt" instead of "Es schmeckt gut". It means the same either way.
Yes, it looks like saying "It tastes" (which sounds strange in English - but then, we can say "it smells" and everyone knows we mean "it smells bad"!).
That's also a word which is used. It means "delicious" or "tasty". Example of its usage include Das Bier schmeckt lecker or Das Bier ist lecker.
I believe that Das can have the meaning of definite article "that", "this" when the noun is neutral. So why is "That beer tastes good" wrong?
Das [X] ist [Y] = "The [X] is [Y]"
Das ist [Y] = "That is [Y]"
e.g.
Das Bier ist kalt = "The beer is cold"
Das ist kalt = "That is cold"
The meaning of das changes whether it stands alone, or is attached to a noun (it must be a neuter noun).
So how to say "That/this beer is cold"? With dies. It means both "this" and "that" when used with a noun. However, dies by itself means "this":
Dies ist kalt = "This is cold"
When you want to put it with a noun, you must put the matching ending on it (called declining) to match das (because Bier is grammatically neuter), you can say:
Dieses Bier ist kalt = "This/that beer is cold"
Duolingo teaches how to decline adjectives and so on in later lessons :)
Why is it schmeckt with a "t" on the end and not any of the other forms of the verb such as schmecke?
Well, let's first look at the conjugation chart for this verb:
ich schmecke = I taste
du schmeckst = you taste (sg.)
er/sie/es schmeckt = he/she/it tastes
ihr schmeckt = you taste (pl.)
wir/sie/Sie schmecken = we/they/you (pol.) taste
These are all the forms of the verb in simple present tense. So we need to choose one of them, right? So how do we choose? Well, if we're not using a personal pronoun (literally saying "it tastes" or "they taste", etc.) then we're usually using a noun directly ("the beer tastes" or "the beers taste"). Notice that even in that English example, the form of the verb is different whether the pronoun is singular/plural, but also whether the noun is singular/plural - and they match up with each other.
So what's happening is that when you use a singular noun, use the verb form for er/sie/es. And when you use a plural noun, use the verb form for wir/sie/Sie. In grammar jargon, these are called the third-person singular and third-person plural conjugations.
If you're ever unsure which one to use, just think about which pronoun you would need if you swapped out the noun: e.g. you could turn "the beer tastes good" into "it tastes good", but not "they taste good" or "you taste good". So that tells you you need to use the "it" = es form of the verb here.
1412
Grammar. The beer is singular, so the verb has to have an 's' at the end. "The beer tasteS good"
I keep doing that as a typo and Duolingo doesn't recognize it as one. Too bad.
You should translate the verb accurately when using Duolingo. That's one of the things it's here to teach! "Is" and "tastes" are different verbs. Maybe medicine is good, but it does not taste good. Maybe beer tastes good, but it is not good (for your health)!
In Serbia, when the food has the specific taste, we usually say "It has the schmek". Very interesting...
In german if you refer to something as that do they usually use das/die/der (and the rest) or jen...(jener\jene/jenes) etc
If you say any as in do you know ANY german people... Would you say.. Jegliches deutsche Volk or something else?
Schmeckt is a verb - 'to taste'. Lecker is an adjective - 'tasty, yummy, delicious'
Because it's not grammatically correct in English . It would have to be something like "the beer has a good taste" .It's verb conjugation in English. Probably didn't help too much but ah well, I tried :)
Unfortunately there are few rules-- you mostly have to memorize the gender of all nouns. However, nouns that end with -ung are always feminine, and nouns that end with -chen or -lein are always neuter.
There has been a different discussion for this post. Anyway, here are few tips to understand them. die, der, das are articles and used before noun. Die is used for Feminine, Der for Masculine and Das for Neuter, but still it's always a good practice to learn the Nouns with article. eg. Madchen (girl) is feminine but considered as Neuter Gender in German, therefore it is Das Madchen. Die is also used for Plural Nouns.
Nouns are defined as Nominative and Accusative case. eg. The man eats the apple. Der Mann isst den Apfel.
Since Apfel is Masculine, therefore the article 'der' is changed to den in accusative case. Here is the matrix for the same.
Nominative Case -
der (Masculine)
das (Neuter)
die (Feminine)
die (Plural)
Accusative Case
den (Masculine)
das (Neuter)
die (Feminine)
die (Plural)
Further example - An Apple - Ein Apfel.
A man eats an apple. Ein Mann isst einen Apfel.
A pizza - eine pizza
A man eats a pizza. Ein Mann isst eine Pizza.
Now, since pizza is feminine in German, therefore the article (eine) remains same in accusative case.
Hope this helps :)
'The beer is good' might convey the same idea as 'Das Bier schmeckt gut' but it is simply not the appropriate translation in a lesson about learning German instead of an exercise in lateral thinking. Maybe you need to realise that 'schmeckt' actually means 'tastes' instead of 'is'.
I entered "the beer tastes good" which matched your translation, but was marked incorrect.
Was this a "type what you hear" exercise? In that case, you have to "type what you hear" -- the voice is speaking German, so you have to type in German.
It tastes good: I like the taste
It is still good: it is still safe to drink and has not turned sour or dangerous // it is good for you: it helps your health // it is good: (perhaps) it has some positive qualities in a greater amount than other beers, without saying what those qualities are (health? taste? colour? weight?).
