"Your friend is my enemy."
Translation:Dein Freund ist mein Feind.
August 3, 2017
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This discussion is locked.
"to be" is not a transitive verb that takes a direct object.
You can't say that the enemy "is being been" by your friend.
"to be" is a copula - a linking verb that links a subject to a predicate that says something about the subject.
Such predicates are (almost always) in the nominative case in English. (And, traditionally, in English -- conservative speakers will say "it is I" and not "it's me".)
I know this is a frivolous question, but is there any connection between "Feind" and the English word "fiend"? They seem so alike. Did the two words have a common ancestor centuries ago?
I know there's no connection now. Looking up the German for "fiend" I found words such as "Teufel" and nothing that resembled the English word "fiend".