23 Comments
"Sieht das Kind den Freund?" ---> "den Freund" is akkusativ Why not "Sieht das Kind dem Freund?" ? ---> "dem Freund" is dativ
Wem sieht das Kind? Das Kind sieht dem Freund Otherwise, the question would be: Was sieht das Kind? Das Kind sieht den Freund (wich is pretty awkward)
Can somebody explain this please?
No, it's "Wen sieht das Kind? Das Kind sieht den Freund." a friend is still a Person.
To use "Dem Freund" you'd have to write a real awkward sentence like "Das Kind sah dem Freund beim Sein zu" - there is no usual way to use "dem" in combination with "Sehen".
As usual the English phrase is awkward but I suppose the point is to concentrate on the German words. However it does make it difficult to take the lesson seriously when the English is so poorly represented!
I just want to make sure of afew things. can someone please correct me. which is the correct question form of 1, 2 or 3 and why.
1-Sie schreibt den freund ein buch ---> (she writes a book to the friend)
2-Schreibt sie den freund ein buch? ---> (does she write a book to the friend?)
3-Schreibt sie ein buch den freund? ---> (does she write a book to the friend?)
shouldn't it be dem Freund for dative? Also in German the general rule is that in the Mittelfeld (that is between the verb and the necessarily last words such as in separable verbs or composite verb forms) you preferably use the dative before the accusative (e.g. Sie schreibt/Schreibt sie dem Freund ein Buch) except when they are pronouns in which case the pronouns always go before the other words (Sie schreibt es dem Freund and Sie schreibt ihm ein Buch) and in case of multiple pronouns the order is ALWAYS accusative dative (so Sie schreibt es ihm and NOT *sie schreibt ihm es). For more info: http://www.canoo.net/services/OnlineGrammar/Satz/Wortstellung/Stellungsfeld/Mittelfeld/Objekt.html?lang=en
I think that strictly speaking both work, but 2 sounds more normal. I'm not a native german speaker so I might be wrong about both working but I do know that with verbs that take two objects the normal word order is first dative object and then accusative object. It does not matter wether it is a question or a statment.
Actually, looking at a friend is different than seeing a friend.
For me, I wrote "Is the kid seeing the friend?" & it had been rejected and I had given the correct answer is "The kid sees the friend?". Actually, I don't see any mistake in my answer but it was rejected. I will report that.
I've got 'That kid the friend' is a possible correct answer. English is not my first language, so I'm very confused. What 'that kid the friend' means? It does not have a verb or a comma... What is next? 'Phone, my home'?
I wrote "the" for "das".But It has been considered wrong.I must have written "that" instead of "das"
I could only imagine this awkward sentence being uttered in some sorta horror supernatural setting where the children is given a gift or curse to see THE FRIEND...
This sentence is pretty terrible in English. I had no clue what to do with it in German either.
