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- "Ich möchte dich besser kenne…
"Ich möchte dich besser kennen lernen."
Translation:I would like to get to know you better.
100 Comments
551
Duo's
- "I would like to get to know you better" is close in flavour to
- "I would like to know you better first" [likely rejected by Duo], implying that I need a "getting to know you better" process before I can know whether I'd like a deeper relationship.
Compare the sentences
- "I would like you to learn better German."
- "I would like you to speak better German first" – which isn't going to happen unless you spend many hours going through the implied learning process, e.g. here on Duo.
Another point: It really has to be Duo's polite
- I would like… (Ich möchte…), not the demanding
- I want… (Ich will…) – which sounds like a small child demanding chocolate.
297
That answer is a little odd in English. Better is "I want to get to know you better", where "get to know you" is a common American phrase.
One difference would be when you want to be more polite with möchten. The verb wollen is more forceful, more definite, less of a request/preference and more of a demand/action when you are expressing something you wish to do. A polite adult would "would like to" as if to say the listener has a choice in whether to make that happen. A toddler says "I want" and expects that the need will be met.
296
The system doesn't seem to know that 'should' is a first-person equivalent of 'would' in British English for sentences such as this.
I won't be able to explain it academically but in simple words: if you have two verbs in a sentence one always goes to end. With modal verbs you don't need the "zu+verb" form, while with other verbs you do. Ich möchte nun nach Hause gehen. Ich werde dich bestimmt anrufen. Ich fange morgen an zu laufen. Lass das sein! etc., etc. Please, could a native speaker explain it more academically and properly?
Could someone explain to me why "I would like to learn to know you better" is incorrect? I mean it is more literal I suppose but it stays in line with "I would like to get to know you better". Maybe I am transliterating from French (French being my maternal language closely followed by English) where we say "J'aimerais apprendre à mieux te connaître." (lit. I would like to learn to know you better). And I am more than certain I have heard it said in English like this before.
551
"I would like to learn to know you better" sounds strange in English. "I would like to learn more about you" is more comfortable English - but might elicit a response such as "Read my facebook page" or even "You'll find all you need to know about me on Wikipedia".
But if I say "I would like to get to know you better", I'd like to do so in person (not on some website!), and hopefully you'd like to get to know me better, too.
Möchten is a modal verb which means "would like." I replied: "I would like to get to know you better," and I was counted wrong. The website replied that the answer should have been: "I want to get to know you better," when in fact, wollen means "to want." So, if Duolingo wishes to keep the answer: "I want to get to know you better," then they should change the German sentence to "Ich will dich besser kennen lernen," will being the Ich conjugation of wollen.
373
The verb is mögen (to like). There is no verb möchten in German. The forms möchte, möchtest, ... are just the subjunctive of mögen. They are always conjugated, there's no infinitive möchten, as there is no to would like in English.
Ich mag - ich möchte
Du magst - du möchtest
Er, sie, es mag - er, sie, es möchte
Wir mögen - wir möchten
Ihr mögt - ihr möchtet
Sie mögen - sie möchten
551
Today, your "I would like to get to know you better" is the favoured response, so Duo must have corrected it some time during the past 10 months.
[25 Mar 2019 10:30 UTC]
Ich - möchte - dich - besser - kennen - lernen.
Literally: I - would like - you - better - to know - to learn.
Rearanged for english: I - would like - to learn - to know - you better.
Ea das rightig?
Although I'm way too new to german be able to build this sentence I think it is much more poetic than the english: "I want to get to know you." It specifically points out that not only do you have to learn the other person, but you also have to learn how to learn about them. In english 'get' indicates that it is a privilege, which is true, but the german not only indicates this with 'möchte', but also indicates that it is work, and that is a fact that is often all too missed in the US, love is work; it is a privilege, but it is also work.
Again, I'm super new to learning german, have I read too much into it?
145
I typed, "I would like to get better acquainted with you," and got it wrong. I'm an American English speaker...am I missing something about the register in the German that makes this translation too formal, maybe?
DL hasn't gone over sentence forming yet for me. like if you translate the sentence literally then the words are out of order in english, "i would like you better get to know" if it had asked me to type the german translation of "I would like to get to know you better" i would not have known what order to write it in. can someone add a lesson on that?
527
My pronunciation may not be perfect but the last part of the phrase is rejected no matter how often I repeat it.