- Forum >
- Topic: German >
- "Das ist kein Stern."
53 Comments
With your high level in Norwegian and a possible liking of Star Wars, I feel compelled to insert this pun, as bilingual puns are the greatest:
Du vet Greedo i Star Wars? Han skjøt først.
This must be at the very least, the most interesting comment I have ever seen on Duolingo. Star Wars + Pun in a language that may very well be alien to me + A quite simple way to attract attention (And utterly effective)... kudos...
Cool!! LOL Took me a moment though, to be honest. =;o)
Have to tell that to my friend who is a really BIG Star Wars fan - but knows no norsk, desverre... Maybe that could motivate her to go for it!.
Tusen takk!
I literally clicked on this discussion to say the exact same thing. :)
I was wondering this myself as "Stern" is the object of the sentence which normally requires the akkusativ.
After a little googling, I came across the concept of predicate nouns.
PREDICATE NOUNS
A predicate noun is a noun that restates or redefines the subject, which it does through the use of 'sein' (to be), 'heißen' (to be called), 'werden' (will), and occasionally 'bleiben' (to stay).
Predicate nouns always take the nominativ case.
haben - akkusativ (regular noun)
- Ich habe einen Bruder.
sein - nominativ (predicate noun)
- Ich bin ein Bruder.
You have "that is not star" which is not grammatically correct. If you want to say "that is not THE star" you could say "das ist nicht der Stern". However to say "not a" you must use kein/keine.
No you cannot. Nicht is used for definite articles as in "das ist nicht der Stern". For indefinite articles we must use kein/keine.
Kein versus keine - when to use what - are these related to gender of the noun ?
With words like Mein, Dein and Kein, it uses the ending that the version of ein would use. For instance, the nominative of Kein would stay Kein if it is masculine or neuter but become Keine if it's feminine or plural.
I wrote "it is not a star" and I failed. Why is "THAT is not a star" the only right translation? From my understanding, Das means "it" and "that"
German doesn't distinguish "that" and "this" quite as strongly as English -- das mostly mean "that" but can also mean "this".
Could I say "Der ist kein Stern", once articles can also be used as demonstrative pronouns?
That would be fine for "That one is not a star", but not for "That is not a star".
Introducing something new with "that" always uses neuter singular, regardless of the gender and number of the thing(s) you are introducing.
Using the gendered and singular/plural forms are for identifying one or some out of a group of things that you had already spoken about.
Shouldn't it be ''Das ist kein ein Stern''?
No.
kein is a bit like a combination of nicht + ein, i.e. like "not ... a" in English (before a countable singular noun) or "not ... any" (before an uncountable noun or a plural noun). It already has the "a" / "any" meaning built into it as well as the "not" meaning.
- Ich habe kein Buch. = I do not have a book.
- Ich habe kein Wasser. = I do not have any water.
- Ich habe keine Tiere. = I do not have any animals.
It does not use keines because that is the genitive form. As for keinen, an above comment by Rockall explains how verbs that redefine the subject are always nominative, and so it takes the form kein.
stern is masculine - der stern so it shud be ---keinen stern some one pls answer me
There is no word stern in German -- it is Stern: capitalised, since it's a noun.
And there's no reason to use the accusative case in this sentence.
"to be" is not a transitive verb that takes a direct object ("That is not a star" can't turn into "a star is not been by that", for example).
Use the nominative case after sein (to be), e.g. Das ist kein Stern.
kein acts a bit like nicht ein -- so it sort of has ein built into it already.
(The word "no" in English works similarly -- "I am no thief" is a bit like "I am not a thief", and you can't say "I am no a thief".)
Can anyone please post the concept of nicht/kein... May be some link or some other discussion thread? I'm really confused about the position of the nicht in sentences.. Humble request!
I'm sorry, but I don't understand why "keinen" isn't used. I don't understand "redefining" the subject or the verb or whatever. Could someone please tell me in simple English why "keinen" doesn't apply? (I have read all the posts.)
in simple English: "to be" has nominative case on both sides.
in a few more words: it's not a transitive verb that takes an object. (One test: "I am eating an apple" can get turned into "An apple is being eaten by me" - the object becomes the subject of a passive clause. But you can't turn "That is an apple" into "An apple is being been by that" - it makes no sense because "an apple" is not an object of "is".)
I thought Das ist kein Stern means this/that is not star. Bcz there are any article "ein" but why the translation says this is not "a" star is right? Does the negation form of 'Kein' function as not only 'not' but also 'an article "a(masculine)"'?
Does the negation form of 'Kein' function as not only 'not' but also 'an article "a(masculine)"'?
Yes, pretty much -- kein is more or less like nicht ein, i.e. "not a" (masculine/neuter), and keine more or less like nicht eine, i.e. "not a" (feminine).
keine is also used in the plural, where English either has no article or uses "any", so Er isst keine Kekse can translate to "He doesn't eat cookies" or to "He doesn't eat any cookies".
Similarly with uncountable singular nouns: kein then translates to "not (any)" rather than "not a", e.g. Ich trinke kein Bier "I do not drink (any) beer".
