- Forum >
- Topic: German >
- "Sind sie drinnen oder drauße…
24 Comments
This is more like indoors and outdoors compared to innen und außen, right?
393
Außen is used to show that something is on the outside, on the outer side. You use it with sentences like: Das Auto ist außen schmutzig. The car is dirty on the outside. Draußen is used to show that something is outside of a room, in the open, outdoors. You use with sentences like: Die Kinder spielen heute draußen. The children play outside today.
This is covered here https://www.duolingo.com/comment/1110090 - simply dr - indicates doors. Innen & aussen can apply to inside/outside of any object.
- 257
So drinnen and draußen would not work figuratively (e.g., 2 criminals discussing whether another gang wants in on their heist)?..
In english, being in or out can mean anything, like are you in or out of the group, in this they specifically mean inside like indoors
- 303
I was finally able to differentiate "sie = they" from the "(S/s)ie's" meaning "you" & "she"!!! (It's not the great variety of terms to make all the case distinctions that's confusing me: it's the bizarre "reduce & reuse" approach German uses to appropriate them!)
The word order.
The German version has drinnen "inside" first and the translation should, in general, preserve the order if that makes sense.
I would drop the side off the last. "Are they inside or out?" or conversely "Are they outside or in?".
I nearly put "Are they within or without?" but I'm pretty sure Duo wouldn't like it, though "within, without" are still occasionally used in the sense of "inside, outside" in British English, and in old nomenclature, for example "St John Baptist Without the Barrs" in Lichfield, UK. This was a hostel on the south side of the city for travellers who arrived outside the Barrs (city gates) after dark.
Why wasn't expected "Are you inside or outside"
Because there is no word in the sentence that means "you".
The sentence had sie ("they") and not one of du, ihr, Sie ("you").
Note that sie and Sie are not the same word -- capitalisation matters!
We were told that drinnen and draußen were indoors and outdoors - which have just been marked as incorrect ...
