"Du lernst von ihm."

Translation: You are learning from him.

[LjubicicHana]

Is it possible to translate this sentence as: You are learning about him? DL marked me wrong, yet in other examples "von" is translated as "about".

[unyone]

Excuse me, what's the difference between aus and von?

[az_p]

With prepositions, it always depends on the context, because they rarely translate 1:1.

In the context of learning, you would learn von someone, but aus a book. It's kind of like "from" compared to "out of".

[YukaLeong]

I don't know if this is correct, but can someone also clarify if 'aus' is meant to indicate from a non-person context while 'von' is from somebody/someone?

[TheOriginalBlob]

how would we say "You are learning of him" (as in about him, about a person)

[Minervas37]

in german you would commonly add "something"

"Du lernst (etwas) über ihn."

[Maggie.D28]

When do you use ihm?

[ethereal_dream]

Ihm is the dative case form of "er". The "von" in this sentence makes "ihm" the indirect object and changes it to dative case.

[mizinamo]

von ihm is not an indirect object or any kind of object.

But ihm is dative because von requires the dative case.

[NikolayRad3]

What is wrong with "You learn from him."? So far Duo teaches me that present tense in German can be both simple and continuous in English.

[Avery_Eubanks]

Why is it “von ihm”? How does that make any sense? You’re not giving anything to him or affected him indirectly so why the hell is it dative?

[Minervas37]

The direct object is what you learn from him and the indirect object is he himself. And:

ihm is dative case because von requires the dative case.

(mizinamo already explained that in this very comment section.)

Example sentence which uses both objects:

• "Ich lerne Schreiben von ihm." = "I learn writing from him"
• "Ich lerne von ihm zu schreiben." = "I learn to write from him."

[Avery_Eubanks]

Oh ok so it’s just dative because “von” requires it from the indirect object?

[Avery_Eubanks]

I still feel it’s very confusing because I feel like “he” should be the subject since he’s giving you a lesson or something along those lines... Couldn’t you write him as the subject, what he’s teaching as direct object and I/me as the indirect object? Like, “Er lehrt mir zu schreiben”?

[Minervas37]

I feel like “he” should be the subject

It always on whose action you're focusing on. Do you think that you, as a learner of the German language, don't do something actively to achieve your goal? Is Duolingo the one doing 'his' work 'on' you?

“Er lehrt mir zu schreiben”

This sentence is correct, but outdated (and thus it won't sound right to many Germans correct). You can say "Er lehrt mich zu schreiben."/"Er lehrt mich Schreiben." Nowadays "Lehren" is one of very few verbs which get two accusative objects, so it's really not the easiest word for learners.

The most common way to say it is:

"Er bringt mir bei zu schreiben."/"Er bringt mir Schreiben bei." that uses the verb "Beibringen" which is seperable.

[AntonioCar110163]

You can also say learn with him...did you know that ???

[Davebarrosobess]

The audio doesnt pronounce the "DU"

[SimpleDeve]

can it be Translation:You learns from him. ? if yes how to differentiate ?

[nonsensicality]

I think you used the wrong conjugation. It could be "You learn from him", but not "You learns from him" :)

As for how to differentiate, it's difficult to explain. I think "learning" and the other -ing words are more common in speech, and you might say "You learn from him" in the context of naming when this happens. For example, "You learn from him on Sundays" would be a common sentence.

Don't worry about this too much because both forms are acceptable and correct in nearly any situation.

[deactivated user]

they mean the same thing