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- Topic: German >
- "Das Pferd frisst Brot."
34 Comments
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
essen is used for people, fressen for animals (and when applied to people, it counts as an insult).
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
So is it ok to just use essen for both situations to play it safe and not accidentally mess up? Is it bad/frowned upon to use essen for both or does it not matter
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.
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
Doesn't Ross mean Horse as well? Is it a synonym or is it used in different cases?
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.
Because Pferd is a neuter noun. Unfortunately, there are no strict rules in German about which nouns are feminine, neuter or masculine, so you'll have to just learn it. No strict rules, but here are some non-strict :D https://www.lsa.umich.edu/german/hmr/Grammatik/Gender/Gender.html
The real question is, Why is the horse eating Bread? Is it part of the horses diet?
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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.
- 680
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).
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.
there is no some word included in th sentence then how does it translate as"the horse eat some bread"
- 680
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".
Could you not teach me the word for hay! Horses ear hay or sugarbeat or carrots. Not bread!
How the horsre a netrual instead of masculine
There isn't generally any logic behind grammatical gender in German.
