"Ich esse mein Mittagessen."
Translation:I eat my lunch.
37 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
"Mittagessen - lunch or dinner?
We're aware that dinner is sometimes used synonymously with lunch, but for the purpose of this course, we're defining Frühstück as breakfast, Mittagessen as lunch, and dinner / supper as Abendessen / Abendbrot."
https://www.duolingo.com/skill/de/Food (Scroll down)
Oh, ok. I have always though the Jenks (Americans) said ‘dinner’ while the British said ‘supper’, both referring to the same meal. Thank you very much for responding! Danke Viel für deine Antwort!
Also, may I express my admiration for you. You have learnt 15 languages...15!!! And that’s only on Duolingo, I checked out your steam and apparently you also speak Chinese so God knows how many languages you know! Wow, you are amazing! Are you fluent in all of those?
Thank you :) "Fluent" is a bit of a nebulous and subjective word, so it's a difficult question to answer, and also my comfort with a given language depends on how recently I have been actively using it.
I'd consider myself comfortably conversant in maybe 6-8 of them at any given time. I can read and understand very many more than I can easily speak well, of course.
Well, I would recommend you to read this article that discusses what ‘fluency’ actually means. It’s written by a great YouTuber who speaks about as many languages as you do (but, of course, not all are the same languages). If your interested, here’s the link: http://goo.gl/JpxSSN. ☺
The previous exercise I had before this one was "Er trinkt deinen Tee" and I figured the deinen is due to it being the accusative. So why here is it not "Ich esse meinen Mittagessen"?
The accusative case only changes the masculine form of the word. In the sentence "Er trinkt deinen Tee", Tee is masculine ("der Tee") , so it changes to "deinen". With the "Ich esse mein Mittagessen", "Mittagessen" has neutral case ("das Mittagessen"), so it does not change. If you wanted to translate "I drink my tea", it would become "Ich trinke meinen Tee".
Hmm, but shouldn't it be meines Mitttagessen? http://www.german-grammar.de/grammar/chapter_16/16_4_all_substantival_possessive_pronouns.htm
Well it's worth reporting that (if you haven't already done so). I had a similar problem before where I translated "Uns geht es gut" as "We are going well". It's just that at the start, systems like these are generally trained to only accept a small amount of translation and gradually grow more lax when more feedback comes in.
If there is a noun following you use the same ending as with ein. Eg Er hat ein Buch. Er hat mein Buch. http://www.german-database.supanet.com/page13.html
I think this most accurately translates to "I eat my midday meal" given the differences being discussed with lunch, dinner and supper. I got this wrong, so I reported it.
I know a little low German chant we like to sing with great gusto before a meal when our large extended family is all together, joining hands and swinging them above the table, ending by banging our elbows on the table and a loud clap. I have never seen it written, but to my ear it sounds kind of like "Freulich zie das Fruhstuck/Mittagessen/Abendessen! Guten appetit!" (long i sound for zie) And sometimes adding Let's eat! in English. I have heard my relatives translate Mittagessen in this context as exactly that - midday meal. At least for the syllables I guess.
When I was little my mother was low German, (not sure if that was why) and we often would call the midday meal dinner though I came to realize to others dinner meant the evening meal. Over time and perhaps changing culture, and my mother passing away, this now seems foreign to me. My dad remarried a British lady and the evening meal is usually called dinner. Especially to the extent it is a family dinner or other occasion/event.
1169
After much soul-searching, I feel I have to report the consistent poor quality of the female voice in these exercises. I have given her the name "Marble Mouth".