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- "The man drinks up his beer."
"The man drinks up his beer."
Translation:Der Mann trinkt sein Bier aus.
22 Comments
Drinks up? Havent seen this anywhere before but i got it in a strengthening practice. Seems odd
To eat / drink up means to finish whatever food or drink you have in front of you, often quickly.
And the German equivalents are aufessen, austrinken (to eat/drink completely, to finish the food/drink).
Yes, they like to insert new concepts right into the exercises, often without warning or any instruction.
Yes, it's frustrating. So we're just supposed to guess what they want because they haven't introduced it yet. :-(
You could think of it as an Easter egg, a surprise learning opportunity. Make a conscious decision whether to be annoyed or delighted.
FWIW I always keep dict.cc open in another tab, and when I got suspicious about "drink up" I thought about it and decided to look it up and there it was: austrinken.
Yes it is even more frustrating when trying to test out of a level and you strike something new.
"Up" in English is often used as a completive marker, even though most English speakers don't know that they're using it this way. Eg. "I fried the eggs" vs. "I fried up the eggs." If you fry up some eggs it means you've fried them completely and not just partially. Or "I shot the room" vs. "I shot up the room." Shooting up a room means you've shot everything that needed shooting, just shooting a room means you only shot it once.
Sorry for the grim example, but I hope that helps!
why is it sein and not seinen since we are looking to say "his"? I thought it was suppose to be seinen. how can I tell if the "his" in this sentence is accusative or nominative?
sein Bier is accusative here: it's the direct object of the verb austrinken.
seinen would have been appropriate for a masculine noun such as with seinen Orangensaft.
But Bier is neuter (das Bier), and neuter nouns ALWAYS ALWAYS look the same in the nominative and accusative cases, in all the European languages I know. So it's sein Bier in the accusative case just like in the nominative case.
In German, only the masculine singular looks different in the accusative case, since in German, feminine and plural nouns also look the same in the accusative case and the nominative case, not just neuter ones. (Whereas in Latin, Russian, Greek, etc. feminine and plural nouns are usually different nominative and accusative cases even if neuter ones are the same.)
Danke! You are always really helpful in understanding the concepts! @mizinamo
Separable prefix verbs have not been covered at the point these are introduced.
The man empties his beer I guess. Seems to me that this is wrong however, you empty the glass not the beer!
Why is the "aus" at the end of the sentence? I wrote "Der Mann tinkt aus sein Bier" and it's wrong. Is there any specific rule that I should take notes for this?
Separable prefixes, including the aus from austrinken, come at the end of a sentence.
Putting your money where your mouth is is a good idea.
Duolingo keeps track of learner retention rates. If they test a change and see people leaving, they will generally not make this change. If people stay but complain in forums which Duolingo staff do not read, I don’t think they care.
So stopping using Duolingo if you do not like it is a good idea, and probably the only way to send a signal to Duolingo.
Thank you!
