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- Topic: German >
- "This child eats fish."
"This child eats fish."
Translation:Dieses Kind isst Fisch.
43 Comments
What is a neuter? Since a child can be either a girl or a boy, thats why its a neuter right? Another example of a neuter? The teacher? The doctor? The cashier?
We are not talking about natural gender here, but about the category of grammatical gender. Every noun has a grammatical gender, which has nothing to do with natural gender and simply should be learned together with the noun.
Examples:
"der Hund" (dog) - masculine
"die Katze" (cat) - feminine
"das Pferd" (horse) - neuter
Rules aside. How does one practically use Das vs Dies forms?
I understand Diese/Dieser/dieses as f/m/n basis noun that immediately follows.
Das = the (n) Dies-e/es/er (f/n/m) = this If it is this you should say the latter if it is the you should say the former... technically it shouldn't accept das in this case because that mean the child undefined vs this child like the child right here
For those who are having trouble understanding this answer due to the lack of punctuation - Dieses: This (right here, as opposed to another child). Das: The/this/that (not to distinguish from a different child). So, it's a matter of emphasis... "Das Kind" would refer to the/this/that child in general, whereas "Dieses Kind" specifically means "This child (as opposed to another one). Right?
Yes but I typed in wrong and Duolingo said the correct answer is Das Kind... So here both are correct. Why?
Oh screw me. I almost finished with full hearts, then I got cocky and ended up writing "Kinder"... <sub>.</sub>
The noun (child) is singular so the verb must be singular to match, hence isst (singular) and not essen (plural).
Well, the plural form of fish (fisch) in English is... fish (fische) as well. Therefore both answers should be right. What if the kid has more than one fish in his plate?
Thats not how german works you cannot say he eats fish (plural) as Er isst Fische you'd have to say Fisch because it is an indefinite statement meaning he could eat a fish or many fish depending on the context you have.
"dies" can only be used if the English "this" stands alone, like in "this is ...". If the word is qualifying a following nown ("this child") you have to add the same endings as you do for adjectives, depending on number, gender and case of the noun.
Dieser the old mans a Geezer (masculine). Diese with an "e" is for the SHE (feminine), but only es when your neutered, what a mess.(neuter)
because the "speaker" is an automatic "text-to-speech" program, which sometimes yields wrong results.
If there's an error in pronunciation, please report it (I believe you have to be in desktop mode to do that, though). I am not hearing the error of which you speak, though.
