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- "Ja, ich habe einen Freund."
39 Comments
Ha I have friends! Sucks to be you! Ha! Hahaha....I don't have friends either.... ;_;
When you hover over "Freund", you'll see; "friend", gentleman friend", and "boyfriend"...who says "Gentleman friend"?
So, is there no way to say "Just a (platonic) friend?" A common way of getting across that concept? It is an English idiom, I suppose.
Normally, 'ein Freund' or 'en Freund von mir' mean platonic friends and 'mein Freund' is a boyfriend. I actually heard Germans saying the word in English to avoid ambiguity.
There are platonic friends in germany, too. But you distinguish them by context only. Edit: saying someone is 'just a friend' actually is the type of context which rules out a boyfriend/girlfriend.
so my understanding is, saying someone is "a friend" just means they are a platonic friend, while saying "my friend" means boyfriend/girlfriend, is this correct?
Generally, that's correct. Although in this sentence it would most likely mean 'boyfriend', since it sound like something you'd answer to the question "Do you have a boyfriend?" ("Hast du einen Freund?").
Then, how it is for "Boyfriend"? And if "Freundin" is "Girlfriend" how it is said a girl who is a friend?
I spoke about this with my German friend and he told me that this is kind of sensitive issue, it could simply mean both, so you have to really pay attention to the context. Otherwise you can easily get into faux pas:)).
Phle is right. It depends on the context. From what I hear, it can lead to some teasing, jokes, uncomfortable situations and a need for clarification, but to clear that the relationship is platonic you can say "Er ist ein Freund von mir."
The translation should actually say boyfriend, in my humble opinion. The meaning is only distinguished by context and someone saying 'Ich habe einen Freund' most likely talks about a boyfriend.
haben does not take a dative object. It takes an accusative object like most verbs.
ah, i was getting haben confused with helfen, i knew it was something starting with h, hehe ta :)
You comment that I have an extra space "I have a boy friend" and you'd like me to put "I have a boyfriend." But I'm picking word boxes! I'm not typing! Well, you didn't mark it wrong. How can I pick what isn't an option??
I don't understand why does Freund recieve the action, can someone explain it please?
Nothing in this sentence is receiving an object (that would use dative). Instead, we have "haben" which like most verbs uses the accusative case. Simply put, the accusative case is used to indicate the object which relates to the subject. This sentence has the subject "I" and the thing that is had is "a friend." Since "Freund" is a masculine noun, the indefinite article in the accusative case is "einen."
Hope this helps!
Freund -> male friend/boyfriend
Freundin -> female friend/girlfriend
Freunde -> friends (male or mixed)
Freundinnen -> friends (female only, but this might sound oddly specific)
Context should clear up the abiguity, but you can always add "von mir" to them to mean friend rather than boyfriend/girlfriend. Using possesive pronouns usually implies boyfriend/girlfriend. Now having said that, this sentence should definitely be "boyfriend," in my opinion, due to the fact that people (usually) have more than just one friend so this sentence points out a particular friend as being special.
The purals can also mean boyfriends/girlfriends if your talking about exes or a group of people's significant others, for instance.
Might have gone a bit overboard on the explanation, but hopefully this helps!
256
I feel like without context the translation of Freund in this sentence should mean boyfriend.
- 191
Freund is a masculine word, and here it is the direct object of the verb habe (i.e., it is the noun that the verb is directly acting upon), so you have to inflect the indefinite article ein to match the accusative case (the case for direct objects). The masculine singular accusative inflection of ein is einen.
How do you distinguish between boyfriend and friend in german with freund?
- 151
Three correct answers submitted and not accepted, not the first time but slightly annoying!
