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- Topic: German >
- "She is eating."
"She is eating."
Translation:Sie isst.
19 Comments
There is much confusion regarding "isst" "essen""esse" can anyone provide me the proper way to tackle the case ? :o
The verb endings change depending on who does something (I, you, he/she/it ...). In addition, "essen" is an irregular ("strong") verb. Like some other irregular verbs, it changes its vowel for the "du" and "er/sie/es" forms in the present tense. Here, the vowel change is from "e" to "i", so it's "du isst" and not "du esst", etc. Unfortunately, the vowel changes of irregular verbs have to be learnt by heart.
essen (to eat)
ich esse
du isst
er/sie/es isst
wir essen
ihr esst
sie/Sie essen
Actually, according to the new spelling rules, it isn't, or rather, it's dated :). After short vowels, "ss" is now used instead of "ß": daß- dass, ißt-isst, Kuß - Kuss, etc. But maybe Duolingo still accepts the old spelling.
If anybody is wondering why we're having this discussion: the spelling reform is a fairly recent development (1996-2006).
The English progressive aspect (e.g. she is eating, he is reading, I am cooking) can't be translated literally into German. In fact, Standard German doesn't distinguish between the simple and the progressive aspects - there is just one form for both. So, depending on the context, "Sie isst" can be translated as "She eats" or as "She is eating/She's eating".
(In addition, in some regions in Germany there is also a special progressive form that is used in colloquial speech. I think Duolingo accepts it, but I would advise against using it. This colloquial progressive form, too, is not a literal translation from English: She is eating = colloquial progressive: Sie ist am Essen.)
ive got a problem. im saying sie isst and letter pop up and then they hide and i cant do the excercise
esse is the form where before it is Ich which makes am eating or eat into esse, when sie is before eat or am eating it will be isst.
