"Das Pferd frisst Brot."

Translation: The horse is eating bread.

[SemicolonCapD]

Why is "frisst" used here in place of "esst" or "isst". I take it it's an animal association technicality, but can someone please point out a more specific rule? Danke

[SimoneBa]

essen is used for people, fressen for animals (and when applied to people, it counts as an insult).

[StanKing1]

So is there a city in Germany named Fressen, populated solely by animals?

[lalehAbr]

no. the whole population have been eaten by animals

[lucyyschh]

In the animals section look at the bottom where it says tips & tricks. You will notice it says fressen is used for animals. Essen is used for humans and fressen will be an insult to humans. But, essen can be used for both animals and humans. :D

[2GreyCats]

https://www.duolingo.com/skill/de/Animals-1/tips-and-notes

[nproiett]

Hpw do you prononce "Pferd"?

[dragonzkiller]

It's pronounced pretty much how it's spelled (one of the pros of German). But having said that it's definitely something difficult to pronounce at first. The "pf" is one of the harder sounds to produce for English speakers, but it does exist in our language.

Anyway, the way I learned was to think of saying "Helpful" When said all together you get the same "pf" sound out. So try to remove the other sounds around the "p f."

The middle of the word ("er") is weird (Rs in German are weird). In this instance it's pronounced similar to "eh" followed immediately by a (slightly) open "ah" sound.

The "d" at the end is pronounced like a "t." Every word that ends with a "d" in German pretty much always makes a "t" sound; except in some loan words.

Hope this helps! You should note though that this based off of Standard German and so can vary from region to region. For instance, some north and central parts of Germany may not include the "p" sound at all. Rs vary a lot regionally, too.

[lucyyschh]

I get you :P When I moved to America from Germany my friends would always tease me about not being able to pronounce the 'th' sound. So pronouncing 'pf' is like saying well I can't explain it but here's a video :D https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1Yp6XS3IO4

[mohsen682816]

Horse eating bread ?? Realy ?? :))

[foo__bar]

Be happy that it isn't eating a duck :D

[Raska5]

I wondered this as well

[herishna]

Doesn't Ross mean Horse as well? Is it a synonym or is it used in different cases?

[lucyyschh]

It's pretty much a synonym for horse but pferd is used more often :)

[universalsigma98]

Why the translation says 'some' when the word is not even included?

[foo__bar]

Bread is uncountable in English, so they are saying that it's eating some ammount of bread ('breads' is used when talking about types of breads, I think). Brot is countable in German (Brote meaning loafs or slices of bread), so they (presumably) wated to show that bread-Brot is used differently in English and German. Just my assumption.

[Tachytelic]

The horse deserves only the best in life.

[Surya239857]

there is no some word included in th sentence then how does it translate as"the horse eat some bread"

[zengator]

The "some" is used to clarify that the horse is eating or does eat bread in general, and not some specific loaf or bit of bread. One can also translate the sentence without using "some". Do not, however, use "the bread".

[sea-mist]

I put "the horse eats the bread" but it said this was wrong and said it is "the horse eats "some" bread.. to me this isnt making sense as the horse eats the bread in english is the same as saying the horse eats some bread.

[zengator]

The German sentence we are asked to translate is not "Das Pferd frisst das Brot." There is a difference between "bread" and "the bread." As die Eule has indicated, without the/das, "bread" can be considered "some bread", rather than something more specific (i.e., the bread).

[Keith234595]

I said "feeds on". That should be right.

[Ted824044]

Think

Essen: Eat
Frisst: Devour

I don't know if that ks technically correct, but it helped me remember the difference between the two terms.