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- "Wir gehen um das Haus."
73 Comments
Can this mean "we go around the house" in the sense of "we go from room to room", along with the literal sense of "we go around the outside of the house"?
This would mean that "We are going around outside the house". If you want to mean room to room inside the house, it would be "Wir gehen im Haus herum."
It does. The word 'im' is a shortening of 'in dem', and 'dem' is the dative form of 'das'.
It's a seperable prefix and sometimes an adverb. It means hither, to this place, to here, to me/us and also can mean "ago" when talking about time. See: https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/her#German
I would say (I'm not a native speaker, so it's just guessing here) that they are not. I think you would be perfectly understood without shortening them. But I think some shortenings are more commonly used, and the Germans are so accustomed to them, that if you want to better "fit in" with your language, you will have to learn to use them ; D
That's right. Kinda like "it is" and "it's". It is perfectly right to write either/both.
It seems a little weird as in "the home", it seems as if anything is should be "the house" instaid of "the home" because "the home" makes it sound like its your home and "the house" sounds like it is a random house or at least someone elses house, home refers to your house, which house on the other hand makes it sound like your snooping someone elses house!?
This might be a bit of Americanism, but I think we would say here, "we go by the house". The translated sentence above makes it sound like you took the long way around the house (as in a circle) to avoid the house. "By the house" would imply something like, "about the area" or "nearby" the house.
921
But "wir gehen um das Haus" means just that, you are walking along the outer perimeter of the house, you are not just passing it.
rund um die Uhr meaning "around the clock; at all hours of the day or night" is a German expression, yes.
For example, Die Hotelrezeption hat rund um die Uhr geöffnet. "The hotel reception (desk) is open around the clock."
what does that actually means? 'We are going round that house'? and what is 'um' in English?
- 2326
um / um ... herum = around
As a preposition, um has different translations into English, depending on context.
E.g.: Es geht um die Sache. = It is about the issue.
Sie kümmert sich um das (= ums) Haus. = She takes care of the house.
And um can also be a conjunction:
E.g.: Er kommt, um zu helfen. = He comes in order to help.
Um, is this preposition acc. or dative b/c it says that this is organised into acc prep, but it is movement within a certain place, which suggests dative.
You're talking about how two way prepositions work. When we use a two way preposition such as 'unter, in', the dative case is used if the object is in a fixed position while the accusative is used when there is movement from one place to another. In this sentence, we make use of the accusative preposition 'um' so that means that whenever in a sentence you have 'um' or any other accusative preposition, the rest of the sentence will be in the accusative case.
Two way prepositions work like this: Sie ist in der Bäckerei ( She is in the bakery) Now in this sentence we know that the woman is in the bakery, that means that there's no movement, so we make use of the dative case.
Sie geht in die Bäckerei ( She goes in the bakery/She is going in the bakery ) Here, the woman is going into the bakery so there's movement, that's why we use 'die' (accusative case)
Hope this helps!
danke! I guess I thought the 2 way rule applied to all, thanks for clearing that up for me-- here's 4 lingots!
Wait, isn't accusative for "der" => "den"? "die" is feminine and plural in nom. and acc. right? I'm so confused right now. If you're not to be corrected that is...
To my knowledge, the accusative form of 'die' (being feminine) is 'der'. Der=>Den, Die=>Der.
That is wrong.
die (whether for plural or for feminine singular) has accusative die -- feminine and plural always have accusative = nominative.
der would be feminine singular genitive or dative, or plural genitive.
Is 'We go about the house' wrong in the grammatical sense? Because it marked it as wrong.
I thought gehen combine with um meant about. wouldn't this translate to we are about the house?
Can this also mean we are going around the house as in, we are going over to the house?
Hang on. I thought "um" meant on? But sometimes it means "at" or "about" and now you're telling me it means "around"?! I don't understand this language
May someone explain the different meanings of 'um' and what cases those meanings correspond with? Danke.
Is um said as dolm? I cannot understand her. It sounds like she is saying a d.
the great thing with "um" is that my German teacher will ask somebody, "what's around?", and they would reply "uuuuummmmmmmmmmmm" "Ah yes well done, You're right!"
The translation for the discussion states "We are going around the house" but the answer claims "We go round the house" is the accepted. This is misleading to me because those are two different phrases. Going "around" the house is either literally circling the physical building or going room by room through it. Going "round" the house seems to be more saying "we are going by the house" as a stop along the way to somewhere else. I chose the latter since "um" can mean "by". Or at least I thought...any clarification or is DL just being DL?
- 921
"Wir gehen um das Haus" always means walking around the outer perimeter. If you are walking around inside it is "wir gehen durch das Haus"
How about "we walk around the house"? Gehen has been used for walk in other questions.
It's really hard for me to understand the masculine voice at times, even at low speed. There should be a setting to select either female, male or both.
That's true for times (um sieben Uhr = at seven o'clock), but for locations, um ... (herum) means "around ...".
Could be all the way around the house as in a complete circle, or just along two or three of the walls, e.g. To go around the house in order to reach the back yard.
I don't know which "the list" you mean, but perhaps because it's not a widely used word in modern German.
There is wider den tierischen Ernst but in general, wider ist most often used as a prefix in forming other words (e.g. Widerstand), and only rarely as a preposition. gegen is more common in the sense "against".
- 1914
Thank you for your explanation. My husband and I initially learned German 35+ years ago and languages do evolve. The list at the beginning of the Duolingo preposition module has accusative, dative and 2-way prepositions. https://www.duolingo.com/skill/de/Accusative-Prepositions. In the Dartmouth German Review website, "wider" is givens as a seventh accusative preposition.. http://www.dartmouth.edu/~deutsch/Grammatik/Grammatik.html
