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- Topic: German >
- "Du kommst aus Chicago."
148 Comments
Is this for someone's origin? Or is this for someone's travel. For example, Karl is born in Los Angeles and he takes a trip to NYC. He has a layover in Chicago. Would he say that he is coming from Chicago? Could he say that he is coming from Chicago? Or is this expression for origin? Or is it for both? Help?
Origin, in this context. But could also mean "he is coming from Chicago" when you're waiting in NYC for him.
Get the actual meaning from context I guess, or reword it in real life to avoid confusion.
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Only one is accepted as correct, though. 'I am coming from Chicago' is marked incorrect.
Both the meanings are correct for this sentence.. n are used as per the situation.
Ich Komme, Du kommst, er/sie/es kommt, wir kommen, ihr kommt, sie kommen, and Sie kommen.
Danke! Is that a rule for all the verbs? any exceptions? Let me try here, Ich trinke, du trinkst, er/sie/es trinkt, wir trinken, ihr trinkt, sie trinken, Sie? sie and Sie - are they different?
The verb forms for wir, sie, Sie are always the same.
And the rule is indeed for just about all verbs.
The two main exceptions are:
- -st will simplify to -t after an -s, -z, -ß, -x as in lesen: du liest; tanzen: du tanzt; heißen: du heißt; boxen: du boxt
- some verbs change their vowels in the du and er/sie/es forms, typically from e to i or ie or from a / au to ä / äu -- this is unpredictable and has to be learned on a case-by-case basis. For example, laufen has er läuft but kaufen has er kauft; geben has er gibt but leben has er lebt etc.
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Pronounciation-wise, what's the difference beteeen er läuft and er kauft (other than the beginning consonant)? Essentially, do they rhyme?
Pronounciation-wise, what's the difference beteeen er läuft and er kauft
For some reason, the German spellings eu and äu represent a sound similar to the English "oy" as in "boy".
While au sounds similar to English "ow" as in "now".
So er läuft sounds like "air loyft" while ihr lauft sounds like "ear lowft".
Essentially, do they rhyme?
Not at all.
As was already explained, eu and äu rhyme/sound alike, while au and äu do not. (Historically speaking, the dots on the a mean there is an extra e stuck in there; you could also spell äu as aeu -- in crossword puzzles, you often have to resort to this ;)).
Both (I'm a native English speaker), means the same thing in this context. I come from England, I am from England.
what is the difference between kommst and bist? Don't they both mean "you are"?
To answer my own question, the verb kommen actually means "to come", but in this context it can translate "to be", as in "ich komme aus New York" = "I am from New York" or more accurately "I come from New York"
Would this sentence be a valid question if I added a question mark? You come from Chicago? makes sense in English, not sure if that's true in German.
My german teacher always told us that if we are asking a question to speak like yoda.
That actually makes questions in German make a little more sense for me. Danke!
It would have to be „Kommst du aus Chicago?”, with the subject and the verb inverted.
German is a V2 language, which means that the verb is always in the second position (which doesn't always mean the second word) except for in yes-no questions and other specific circumstances like dependent clauses. This means that her word order is generally stricter than English's.
[2019/04/21]
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You can definetly say "Du kommst aus Chicago?" as a question, it puts a higher emphasis on the "Du". Also "Aus Chicago kommst du?" would be possible, though unusual. Word order is usual less strict than english, do to the use of cases, which often compensate for placement in a sentence.
To everyone that doesn't understand German verbs.
An easy way to bend the verbs in the right form is thinking about the infinitive form of the verbs. In German it always (or at least nearly always) the infinitive verb form ends with a -en. Examples: kommen (to come), sein (to have), lieben (to love) and so on.
Now that we want to bend the verb kommen we need to first look at who is coming. Examples: I, you, he, she, they and so on. When we have the person for example you. We need to take away the -en of kommen, so now we have komm. Now that we have komm we need to think about what to add. When it's du (you) you always add an -st in the end. So komm + St is kommst. And this is how it works with all the different people you speak to, but the ending is different. I = an ending of -e, so that would be komme. He/she/it = an ending of -t. We = an ending of -en. You (plural form is ihr) = an ending of -t. They (sie) = an ending of -en. You (Sie with big S is what you call strangers) = an ending of -en. Now bare in mind that this is only for present verbs.
I hope this helped you understand the ways to bend verbs in German present.
Thou cometh from chicago? Du kommst aus Chicago. Sometimes the conjugation in german isnt so bad.
"Thou comest", actually -- even closer to "du kommst".
"cometh" goes (or rather, went) with "he, she, it".
Interesting stuff. I didnt realize that third person had been simplified in modern English.
I notice with German that 'c' is usually a 'k' instead. But not with 'Chicago' . Does German generally keep the spelling of foreign words (As long as they have the sounds and alphabet for it) the same?
Does German generally keep the spelling of foreign words (As long as they have the sounds and alphabet for it) the same?
German generally keeps the spelling of foreign proper nouns (personal names and place names) the same if they are spelled with the Latin alphabet.
Exception: some very famous and historically significant places will have their own German names -- much as in English we call the Italian city Roma "Rome", so in German it also has a German name: Rom.
But "New York", for example, is not Neujork in German, nor is "Chicago" Schikago.
As a matter of fact, if you pick up a 19th century book, you will find Germanized forms like Chikago or San Franzisko (or complete translations like Neuschottland for Nova Scotia). Most of these fell out of use and generally disappeared by the mid-to-late 20th century. The only one that really, really stuck and become naturalized is Kalifornien. To the best of my knowledge, a natural German conversation will never contain the form "California". I guess this fits nicely with Californian self-perception as almost a separate nation, as such loan-translated names are otherwise almost exclusively reserved for nations or at least larger entities: Australien, Neuseeland, Neuengland. I guess Neufundland breaks my theory because it is quite small (at least populationwise ;)) , but then was very significant economically very early on, so that stuck too.
'Du kommst aus chicago' is correct. Is 'Ihr kommst aus chicago' also correct?
No, it is not -- the subject ihr and the verb form kommst do not match.
If the subject is ihr, you have to use the verb form kommt, so it will be Ihr kommt aus Chicago.
I cant figure out this komme komst etc thing. Where can i read more about it? I did this correctly, but my main problem is with esse and komme, i can figure out heisse and leist
I don't know of a specific place. But it's fairly simple. Perspective change=verb ending change
I=ich, add "e" You (singular)=du, add "st" He/she/it=er/sie/es, add "t"
We=wir, add "en" You (plural)=ihr, add "t" They=sie, add "en"
I wish they made verb endings and other grammar things a lesson early on.
This depends on the perspective - the verb endings change
I=ich, add "e" You (singular)=du, add "st" He/she/it=er/sie/es, add "t"
We=wir, add "en" You (plural)=ihr, add "t" They=sie, add "en"
Hope this helps :)
This really helps.
To remember it, I've come up with a system that is a bit clumsy, but folks might find the key idea helpful, and adapt it, for each word ending, I link it (sort of think of it) in some way to English or French:
For Ich (e) - me (reminds me it ends with same letter) Ihr/Er/Sie/es (t) - 'tu' of French, meaning 'you' Wir/Sie (they) (en) - everyone, multiple people Du (st) - single 'tu'
Different subjects/perspectives=different verb endings
I=ich, add an e You (singular)=du, add st He/she/it=er/sie/es, add a t
We=wir, add en You (plural)=ihr, add a t They=sie, add en
I am testing out all levels consecutively and see the exact same set of questions. The very same happened with other lessons. Moreover, when I want to skip the level on android, it just shows a few questions 4-5 whereas on PC it is more than 10 questions. Does that happen to you as well? If that is the case, maybe developer team might consider testing out all levels of a lesson. I did not study for a few months and now I need to test out all levels individually. Duolingo keeps introducing new features like stories which is needless to say excellent but the real strength with the core lessons. If they cannot catch up, better to focus first on these issues.
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Is there any difference in German, grammatically, between 'you are from Chicago' (your home is Chicago) and 'you come from Chicago' (the most recent place you were [i.e., a layover] was Chicago)?
omg, the pronunciation of Chicago in this German is just the worst to understand
In German it is not pronounced Chichago with two ch it is pronounced Chikago.
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Are they pronouncing the word Chicago as she-ha-go? Is just me or are they really pronouncing it that way? Is that the way German pronounce the word Chicago?
Duolingo: Du kommst aus Chicago. = You are from Chicago. But the hints say that 'kommst= are coming'. So I put down, 'You are coming from Chicago' and its marked incorrect. Can anyone explain why or how it is wrong? (I realize there may be an answer somewhere below but there's like, 136 comments and I went thru about half looking for an answer and then gave up)
It's just that they haven't programmed it to mark it as correct even though it is correct. It's just about what context you have to it, which isn't very easy to know when you don't have any context to the meaning. Hope I helped?
the hints say that 'kommst= are coming'
The hints are not sentence-specific. They're more like dictionary definitions, and for words with multiple meanings or uses you may find hints that are not appropriate for the current sentence.
For something that is happening right now, kommen can be translated as "be coming", e.g. Sieh mal! Tom kommt! (Look! Tom is coming!).
But for someone's origin, we use the present simple tense in English, since it's a (more or less) permanent truth: Tom kommt aus Chicago. "Tom comes from Chicago."
komme, kommt, kommen, kommst please someone briefly explain to me the difference? is it the same as heiBe, heiBt, heiBen?
Verb conjugations. The ending changes based on perspective(I, you, ...). Lots of people explained above
Heiße has an eszet (ß). Al verbs I know of use the same verb ending system
What would you say if you are calling from somewhere would it be von instead of aus?
What I have heard is that "ich komme aus" works for both changes and you have to judge on context.
In the conjugation of verb "Komen", at the top of the table "indicative" is written, what "indicative" stands for?
Note: ich bin aus kommen Chicago, I just thought I'd point it out there. (Tell me if i did that correctly)
Duo means you and kommst means are you, so why is it du kommst aus berlin?
Kommst means "come" so the sentence word by word would be "I come out of Berlin", or correctly said, I am from Berlin
Kommst is used for the subject 'Du' whereas kommt is used for the subjects 'er/sie/es and ihr'
Sometimes du changes the word endings to -t and -st. Ihr does the same but opppsite. Its sk confusing when to to what ending between du and ihr! Anyo e have a tip?
In general, du always has an -st ending: du trinkst, du kommst.
However, if the verb stem ends in a /s/ sound, you just write -t -- for example, du liest, du isst, du weißt, du boxt, du würzt instead of du *liesst/*ließt, du *issst, du *weißst, du *boxst, du *würzst. It's a pronunciation thing.
ihr always has the -t ending. (I think the only exception is ihr seid.)
Thus when the verb ends in a /s/ sound, the du, er, ihr forms can look the same, e.g. du löst, er löst, ihr löst.
When the verb changes its vowel in the du and er, sie, es forms, then du and er can look the same, but different from the ihr form, e.g. du liest, er liest; ihr lest.
Hmm when put "Kommst aus" isnt that mean "are coming from" but Duo says it is only " are from" , plz help
"Kommst aus" isnt that mean "are coming from"
No. It's "come from". An origin is not an action.
I come from Germany -- but not: I am coming from Germany.
kommst is only for the du form.
It's not used for ihr or Sie (though those are also translated as "you" in English).
du is used when you speak to one person whom you know well.
ihr for several people whom you know well.
Sie when speaking formally (to a person or to several people whom you do not know well).
I cannot complete the sentence because there are no words from which to select. This appears to be on a number of my categories and whilst I can skip the sentence I cannot complete that section (or level) because I cannot progress through that level. Is anyone else experiencing such obstacles?
Should be fine, I guess? I think it was established several times in this thread that "kommen" can mean "to be from" as well as "to have arrived from", and so in that second sense (you just stepped off the bus/train/flight from Chicago), that sounds perfectly accepable to me. What do the English native speakers think?
I do not understand why this one doesn't translate to "You are coming from Chicago" instead Duolingo says it is "You are from Chicago"
I do not understand why this one doesn't translate to "You are coming from Chicago" instead Duolingo says it is "You are from Chicago"
Because in English when we say where we are from, we say "I'm from Chicago" while a German would say Ich komme aus Chicago.
Well, strictly speaking, the German sentence is ambiguous. "Aus X kommen" is 'to be from' as well as 'to have arrived from'. Which meaning is intended should usually be clear from the context. Additionally, you could add temporal information like "Ich komme gerade aus Chicago", i.e. I've just arrived.
I still struggle and confused by when "Komme, Kommst" are used im guessing whuch one fits and i have no idea why
Jared, all it takes is figuring out the grammatical person: 1st person singular: komme, 2nd person singular kommst, i.e. ich komme, du kommst. Okay? :)
Does anyone have a good way of remembering when to use Komme Kommst and Kommt? Its driving me mad i keep getting it wrong haha
Does anyone know a good way to remember when to use Komme, Kommst and Kommt? I keep getting them wrong haha
Not sure if this works for you, but the regular endings -e -st -t are in alphabetical order (e before s before t), so you can just kind of check them off as you go 1st person sg, 2nd person sg, 3 person sg. :)
Sorry to hear that this hasn't been added yet; I still believe this should be an accepted answer.
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It seems to me that "You are coming from Chicago" ought also to be accepted, but it is not as of 5 Sept 19. Wenn falsch, wie sagt man auf deutsch "You are coming from Chicago"?
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The lesson isn't giving the word "come" as an option to click on, so I can't get the correct answer.
the correct answer.
This sentence has more than one accepted translation, so talking about "the" correct answer as if there is exactly wrong is not great.
The translation that's marked as "best" is "You are from Chicago" -- you may have received word tiles for that translation.
Isabelle, see my comments above. "You are coming from Chicago" most certainly isn't wrong... Duolingo has just not chosen to accept is as correct. Mapping English and German tenses onto each other 1:1 is notoriously deceiving (especially when aspect is concerned), and so in real world language use, there are many situations when "you are coming from Chicago" will indeed be the most natural, "most correct" version of the sentence. But cf. Mizinamo's answers above, Duolingo has chosen to rather narrowly interpret this sentence (no doubt for a very good reason, likely supposed to teach the use of tense and aspect in stative verbs). Unfortunately, this is counter-intuitive to many users, as can be seen from comments such as yours or mine. We will probably have to accept that.
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Thank you linguistkris - so many others (inclding Mizinamo) keep arguing why the use of present continuous is wrong ... as if there were any difference between present simple and present continuous in German. At last, here is a clear answer. You deserve a lingot, thank you.
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I answered " You are coming from Chicago" at this and the app tells me it's wrong. Can anyone tell me why?
It's wrong because it's not someone coming from Chicago, it's someone that is born in Chicago and comes from Chicago.
Ah, but there is no context and we cannot know that. (See my comment above. :))
I realized that now. It could definetely mean you are coming from Chicago. That is because it is written in present form. But it could also mean that someone is born in Chicago because that is also present.
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Major glitch. I am marked wrong - repeatedly. I am typing the exact correct answer. One time I even copied and pasted the right answer - and it was still wrong!!
It would be really helpful if you could provide a screenshot of something like that happening.
If it happens again, please take a screenshot, upload it to a website somewhere (e.g. imgur) and include the URL to the image in your comment.
Just from your description, it's impossible to say what might have happened.
Why is "you came from chicago" not right?
"came" is past tense; kommt is present tense.
Why is my answer incorrect?
Nobody can see your answer unless you show it to us -- upload your screenshot to a website somewhere and tell us the URL, please.
can't it be " Du bist aus Chicago." ???
i mean if "bist" was one of the words i can choose.
Bist means "you are" kommst means "you come". It's just weird in English, but my native language is swedish and that makes it way easier because we say "du kommer".
It translates as 'You come from Chicago' not 'You are from Chicago' because 'You are from Chicago' translates as Du bist aus Chicago. So why does it say 'you are from' when it's 'you come from'?
I understand how "Du kommst aus Chicago" translates into "You are from Chicago", but "You are coming from Chicago" should have been also accepted as correct. Grammatically, it is correct. Aren't I right?
Hallo, Ich komme aus Indonesia (Hello, I come from Indonesia). Is this correct?
Anyone else struggling with the speaking exircises? No matter how fast or loud I speak it won't accept it. It's like it doesn't hear me. And I know my Mic is on. Anyone else having this problem?
Sure would be nice if the ❤❤❤❤❤❤❤ app taught us what was wrong instead of just saying it.
