27 Comments
Besucher can be just any visitor. Gast = guest, someone who is welcome or even invited.
This is sooo funny, in Italy, in Genoese dialect, "Besugo" means "jerk, idiot". Actually, people from Genoa are popular for their lack of hospitality :D
I though the same thing! haha Sounds like "bez ucha" in Czech, "without an ear", so I ended up imagining a visitor who talked my ear off about something or another.
Shouldn't this be, "Ich bin Besucher," because when using the verb sein there isn't an article added when describing themselves.
I think the same. Yet, it's probably no serious error (the "Kennedy-error").
However, sometimes, the use of article for titles can make a slightly difference of meaning. For example, in my mother tongue Danish, 'He is a clown' means that the person behaves like a clown whether 'He is clown' means that it's his profession.
In this case, I think that we in Danish only say 'a visitor' (with article) when we want to emphasize that it's one visitor out of several (e.g. at a museum). I think that these examples are also valid in German.
Yes -- Ich bin Besucher would seem a bit as if it's that person's role or profession.
On this same topic, is there a difference between 'Ich bin Artz' and ''Ich bin ein Artz'? Is the second one even allowed?
I love how German sounds so much like Dutch, it makes it a lot easier to learn :D
If I as a foreigner (from say the States) was visiting Germany would I use Besucher, Gast, or something else?
If the sentence describes a subject using sein, then the description is in the normative form.
I/He/She/It/They/We am/is/are = normative.
Eg. 'Ich bin ein Vogel.' compared with 'Ich habe einen Vogel.'
German grammar is hard! Don't give up trying.
When you say "normative" I think you mean "nominative", the case usually used for the subject of a sentence? I remember this by the fact that when using "sein", you are saying both things are the same so in
"Ich bin ein Vogel"
I, and the bird, are the same thing therefore the subject, whereas in
"Ich habe einen Vogel"
I am the subject and the bird is the object
Why " Ich bin EIN Besucher" when a previous question was "Ich bin EINE Person"- The sentences seem to have the same structure- why "ein" in one and "eine" in the other?
Because the word Besucher is grammatically masculine and the word Person is grammatically feminine.
The Gender of words is often arbitrary. Best to learn them along with the word -- e.g. learn die Person rather than just Person so that you will know that the word is feminine. A good dictionary will be useful here.
