- Forum >
- Topic: German >
- "Ich bin ein Junge."
89 Comments
So bin is used in a sentence about myself and bist in a sentence about another.
Yes, you could think of it like that. You would never say "I are" or "you am" in English, would you? No! German is exactly like that.
I am - Ich bin
You are - Du bist
eine is a female form, and ein is a male. Also, children do not follow this rule, we use the possibly neutral ein for all children.
Check out the lesson tips (on the web version): https://www.duolingo.com/skill/de/Basics-1
They explain when to use them, and some other helpful hints.
If I'm correct, just about every noun in German, proper or common, is capitalized.
Hi .. i am a new learner so i will appreciate the help... my question is when to use " Ich bin" and when to use "Bin Ich" ?! German language is really confusing :D
You would use them just like you would in English.
Ich bin - I am
Bin ich - Am I.....?
The first one starts off a statement, and the second a question.
I am your friend - Ich bin dein Freund
Am I your friend? - Bin ich dein Freund?
Understand? :)
Normally when there's a verb, something is in accusative case, yes. The verb seine (conjugated here as ich bin) is an exception to this - both sides are in nominative case.
What do i say if i want to say "one boy" instead of "a boy"? Is there actually any difference between those two in German?
you could use 'nur' to emphasise that it is a single boy. nur = only/just/solely.
so 'a boy' = ein junge. 'just/only one boy' = nur ein junge.
Notes - these should be helpful for everybody in ein and eine!
*Always try and learn the gender of a noun when you learn the noun. e.g - learn 'die Katze' = cat. rather than just 'Katze' It will save you time and effort in the long run!
*Try and keep a vocab list and practice new vocab that you've learnt regularly, there are some helpful patterns as I've said but the way to really get nouns and their genders fixed in your head is through old fashioned rote memorisation (really duolingo should have some kind of flashcard feature, they may well add one at some point)
The following are typical Masculine endings of nouns with examples.
-
'ig' = 'Der Honig' (The honey), Der Konig (The King)
-
'er' = 'Der Computer' (computer), Der Sprecher (The speaker)
-
'ismus' = Der Rassimus (racism), Der Kapitalismus (capitalism)
-
'ant' = Der Passant (the passerby) Der Elefant (elephant)
-
'ist' = Der Polizist (police), Der Optimist (optimist)
-
'ich' = Der Teppich (rug)
-
'ing' = Der Fru*hling (spring) * = the u should have an umlaut.
-
'or' = Der Motor (Motor)
-
'ast' = Der Palast (the palace)
The following are typical Feminine endings of nouns with examples.
-
'e' = Die Karte (the map), Die Katze (the cat)
-
-'heit/keit' = Die Minderheit (the minority) Arbeitlosigkeit (unemployment)
-
'schaft' = Die Freundschaft (friendship), Die Wissenschaft (science)
-
'ung' = Die Meinung (opinion) Die Bildung (education)
-
'ion' = Die Lektion (lesson) Die Inspektion (inspection)
-
'ik' = Die Logik (logic), Die Panik (panic)
-
'age' = Die Etage (floor/level/storey)
-
'anz' = Die Toleranz (tolerance)
-
'ei' = Die Metzgerei (butcher)
-
'enz' = Die Existenz (existence)
-
'ette' Die Diskette (floppy disk)
-
-'tat' = Die Realitat (reality) *( again, those a's should have umlauts)
-
-'ur' = Die Figur (the figure)
The following are typical Neuter endings of nouns with examples.
1.'chen' = Das Kaninchen (rabbit), Das Madchen (girl) 2.'lein' = Das Buchlein
2.(booklet) Das Fraulein (miss) 3.'um' = Das Datum (date) Das Geburtsdatum
3.(birthday) 4.'ium' = Das Stipendium (grant/scholarship), Das Aluminium
4.(aluminium) 5. Collective nouns beginning with 'Ge-' = Das Gepack (the luggage)
5.Das Gemu*se (the vegetables) 6. 'at' = Das Referat (department/unit) 7. 'ett' =
6.Das Skelett (skeleton) 8. 'icht' = Das Licht (light) 9. 'ma' = Das Dogma (dogma)
-
'sal' = Das Schicksal (fate) 11. 'tal' = Das Tal = (valley)
-
'tel' = Das Hotel (hotel) 13. 'tum' eigentum (property)
N.B = I've used * to substitute for umlauts here, but usually in written German you would simply put an extra 'e' after the vowel, I chose not to to make the spellings more clear.
N.B = There are some exceptions to the above patterns, but they are a very good general guide so that you can get in to the habit of being able to make an educated guess about the gender of a noun without having to look in a dictionary every time.
The word "ein" is used to indicate a singular noun the same way "a" is used in English. The sentence here doesn't mean to stress quantity, rather the fact that the speaker is a boy.
When you wish to convey "I am a boy." to a German, you would say "Ich bin ein Junge."
If you wanted to say "I am only one boy" in order to stress quantity, you would say "Ich bin nur ein Junge"
junge is a boy (not an adult man, that would be mann). Kind is a child, and Mädchen is a girl.
Remember to always capitalize "junge" so that it is spelled "Junge," that also goes for "mann," it has to be capitalized," "Mann." Otherwise it is not correct. In German, ALL common and proper nouns are capitalized. In English, the pronoun "I" is always capitalized whether it is at the beginning, middle, or end of a sentence, otherwise it is incorrect. In German, all nouns are capitalized whether they are at the beginning, middle, or end of a sentence, otherwise it is incorrect.
Literally, "der Junge" can mean "the young one" as well as "the boy" – these are just two different meanings of the same, say, 'sequence of letters'. Grammatically, they behave differently, as mizinamo pointed out. And: youth = Jugend, yet another related word.
Is there any German equivalent of 'I'm' instead of 'I am' or does the German language have abbreviations?
There's no exact equivalent of "I'm" in German, but German does use some abbreviations. Often they are quite different from English ones though. Generally Duolingo does not work as well if you use abbreviations in English, so just write words out fully and you'll be fine.
(For more advanced students: there are a number of abbreviations that are pretty much mandatory though, namely combinations of preposition + article such as ins or zum.)
There's no exact work for "teenager" in German, but sometimes they use the English word. Sometimes the word Jugendlicher might be used, but this is more like "youth" and isn't specific to the ages of 13-19. Junge does not have this meaning.
No. einen would be the accusative case, but with "to be", there is nominative case on both sides.
It's not grammatical and so does not have a translation.
(And there's no real way to create an English sentence with the same measure of ungrammaticalness, to give an idea.)
Ein is masculine and eine is feminine. Ein is also used for neuter words :)
Eine is strictly feminine (if I'm correct) and ein is neuter and masculine ^^
ein is masculine and neutral, while eine is feminine. In the sense of language, an object or a child is neutral, a woman is feminine, and a man is masculine. I might be wrong about the object (I know it isn't that way in spanish) but I think I'm correct.
Why is eine used for woman like for example, "eine frau und ein mann." Can't you use eine for mann too?
No, you need to match the right form to the gender of the noun. Eine is only for feminine nouns. The gender of nouns just needs to be memorised when you learn them.
You should keep the meaning the same when you translate. If the sentence says "boy" then you should only write Junge, and if it says Kind you should only write "child", for example.
Hallo - I was wondering if there is a reason that "ein Mann" was translated by Duolingo as "one man" and "eine Frau" was "one woman" but "ein Junge" is "a boy" (not "one boy")? Would it also be correct to translate "Ich bin eine Frau" = "I am a woman", for instance?
Your understanding is correct. Ein/eine can mean either "one" or "a". Usually "a" will sound more natural, so Duolingo prefers this translation. But it depends which answers got written into the computer program's database. Sometimes it's not perfect.
Ein is before masculine and neutral (der, das). Eine is before feminine (die).
When the AI says "Junge" I swear I'm hearing a soft "n" sound at the end? Is it pronounced that way or am I hearing wrong? Thanks :)
eine is used before words that are grammatically feminine.
All words in German have a grammatical gender, not just words referring to people; and the grammatical gender of an item generally has nothing to do with the item itself.
For example, der Rock "the skirt" is grammatically masculine even though it's something usually worn by women; das Mädchen "the girl" is grammatically neuter even though girls are female; der Löffel "the spoon" is grammatically masculine even though spoons aren't alive; das Pferd is grammatically neuter even though horses are alive; die Person is grammatically feminine even though a person can be male or female; and so on.
What do you mean with a masculine verb?
Also, there is no German word madchen -- Mädchen is spelled with a capital M (it's a noun) and an ä (or if you can't type that, then write Maedchen).
Ein is used for masculine and neuter words, whereas eine is used for feminine words c:
No. That would have to be Ich habe einen Jungen, with einen Jungen in the accusative case as the direct object of haben.
Here's how that works, it goes Ich = Bin Du = Bist Er/sie/es = ist Wir/Sie = Sind and Ihr = Seid So when you are referring to 'you' informally, you would use bist. If you use 'sind' you are saying formal you, they, or we.
is "ich" pronounced as "eek" or "each".
Even when I slow it down, I can't tell the difference.
Please help!
is "ich" pronounced as "eek" or "each".
Neither.
The ch in ich is a sound which is not often used in English, but some speakers make this sound when pronouncing the "hy-" sound at the beginning of words such as "huge" or "human".
In the International Phonetic Alphabet, it's [ç].
Thank you! This helps a lot! I have been replaying over and over trying to hear that sound and it wasn't clear to me. This really helps!!
My answer was "I am a boy" I did not have the period and it counted as incorrect. It should count as correct regardless of punctuation.
I did not have the period and it counted as incorrect.
Duo ignores commas and periods completely, as far as I know.
If your answer was marked wrong, you probably had some other mistake.
Do you have a screenshot of your answer being marked incorrect, so that we can see exactly what you typed -- not what you thought you typed or what you intended to type?
I know this is what i typed because I KNOW what the words are. I also kept double, triple checking if i jad a type-o but what I did not double check was the instructions, I believe what had happened is I was instructed to type what I heard, not what the translation is. So I should have answered in Deutsch not English.
