Broad areas of time in German

[cluney2]

Hey everyone. I have a question. So I can say I'll be ready in ten minutes. In zehn minuten werde ich bereit sein. However I was wondering about more broad areas of time like This might take SEVERAL minutes. Or I'll be A LITTLE WHILE. Does anyone have some enlightenment of these types of sentences? Please give me some of the words and if you can use them in a sentence please do. For the times when I don't know exactly how long I'll be. I know a few already such as Ich bin gleich bereit zu gehen. Or Ich muss bald gehen. Just some enlightenment on some others.

Thanks
cluney.

[Hannibal-Barkas]

This might take several minutes - das könnte ein paar Minuten dauern/... einige Minuten dauern

It'll be a little while - das wird eine ('ne) Weile gehen (dauern) / das wird ein bisschen dauern

I would rather use "fertig sein" instead of "bereit sein". To me, it sounds more casual, like waiting for the partner to be ready to go out. Bereit sounds like Usain Bolt on the track, ready to break the world record

Where did you find "ich muss fast gehen"? That sounds a bit odd to me. "Es ist fast eins" - it is almost one o'clock, that's ok, but "fast gehen"? I would use "ich muß gleich/bald gehen" or, if you really have to, "... in Kürze gehen", even if this one is more business like and definitively not very casual.

[cluney2]

Thank you. That's really helpful. I think I did indeed get fast mixed up with bald. Although in my German lessons they kept on saying Er ist gleich BEREIT zu gehen. So should I use Er ist gleich FERTIG zu gehen? or does it change depending on sentence structure?

Vielen Dank :D

[Elleasar]

"Er ist gleich fertig zu gehen" - that doesn't work out. In that case you should use "bereit". You could however say "Er ist gleich fertig" to express that he will soon be ready.

[Hannibal-Barkas]

right you are. Just to add a bit of colloquial German, I would use "er ist gleich so weit, dass wir gehen können", of course with a certain amount of local accent ;-)

[slamRN]

I'd be interested in the answers you get. This week I'm concentrating more on word order than I usually do.