"Die Schweine fressen Kartoffeln."
Translation:The pigs eat potatoes.
39 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
"Fressen" is usually used only for animals, while "essen" is used for people.
(If you do use "fressen" for people, it implies that they are eating like an animal.)
The difference between "feed" and "eat." Only animals feed on things, it would be vulgar to apply fressen to people.
According to dict.cc the first would be more vile and barbaric whereas the other one means regular eating, doing it in a 'normal' way.
Fressen is more like Frantically guzzling, gobbling down.
Essen is eating at a table, usually with cutlery ;-)
They both mean tio eat But Fressen is used for animals and essen is for people
1258
Applying fressen to humans is very offensive. Fressen is for animals who eat in a sloppy manner. Essen is for humans.
Could "Die Schweine fressen KartoffeIn" also mean "The pigs are eating potatoes."? Or is it just "The pigs eat potatoes."
There must have been some other error then, because "The pigs are eating potatoes" is one of the listed accepted solutions.
- 1136
I wrote the pigs eats potatoes and got wrong. I though it was ok but English is not my first language.
Are you supposed to pronounce the 'l' in 'Kartoffeln'? Is it more like 'kart-off-in'?
The "l" is pronounced, but there should be almost no "e" in that syllable: 'kar-toff-ln"
Why die katze frisst but die schweine fressen?
It isn't. It's die Katze frisst and die Schweine fressen, with capital K on Katze and capital S on Schweine.
die Katze is singular, so you use the verb form frisst ("is eating").
die Schweine is plural, so you use the verb form fressen ("are eating").
The five possibilities are (and each of them except for the first and the last one can be accompanied by an Umlaut or not):
-(e)n: die Kartoffel->die Kartoffeln, die Fahne->die Fahnen (often for words ending in -e, the additional e or even reduplication of end consonant are inserted for better pronunciation)
-er: das Buch->die Bücher, der Mann->die Männer, das Kind->die Kinder
- (no ending): der Vater->die Väter, der Beutel->die Beutel (often for words already ending in -er)
-e: der Hahn->die Hähne, das Maß->die Maße
-s: das Baby->die Babys (only for foreign words)
I suppose you could consider a subtype of the first possibility those foreign nouns where the ending -en replaces the original ending rather than being added, e.g. die Firma, die Firmen; das Museum, die Museen.
Yes, and I forgot to mention that there are additional endings which are used for some foreign words (most of them Latin or Greek), e.g.:
das Visum->die Visa
der Atlas->die Atlanten
There are some rules of thumb, but generally it is the best approach to learn the plural together with the word (there are 5 possibilities of plural endings in German, plus sometimes the vowel inside is changing).
How will you say "the pigs are eating potatoes" will it be same
Yes.
Because "die Schweine" is plural.
Die Schweine fressen. The swine (or pigs) eat.
Das Schwein frisst. The swine (or pig) eats.
The fact that the singular and the plural of "swine" are spelled the same in English, but differently in German, can be confusing.