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- "Wir trinken, und du bezahlst…
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Is German's present tense ever used to refer to the future? Like how we might take the present progressive tensed sentence in the English translation to mean "we are going to drink and you are going to pay."
For the German sentence structure, is the use of the comma required in cases like in this example?
Yes, it can.
Perhaps this is something that happens every evening -- a repeated, habitual action, for which we would use the present simple tense: "We drink and you pay".
Leider wird "We drink and you pay" als falsch gewertet. Ich habe es gemeldet.
That seems like a set of instructions or a sort of game plan. A better English sentence would be "When we are done drinking, you will pay".
Neither are a correct translation of the German sentence, though, which doesn't have a "when" and only says "trinken". Usually, the simplest answers are best.
[2019/05/02]
Wenn man zwei Hauptsätze miteinander verbindet, kann man ein Komma setzen. Früher musste man das sogar.
I s2g the male voice says "uns" or "unsd". Is it a bug or is it an allomorph (like 'ist' commonly being pronounced as 'is')?
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I was taught that "zahlen" was to pay, and I understand all of the conjugations of the word (I got the question correct), I am just not understanding how we go from "zahlen" to "bezahlen". Where does the "be-" come from? Is is saying "you will be paying" and that is why the "be-" is there?
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You generally can use either zahlen or bezahlen to say to pay. There is still a subtle difference:
Ich zahle Steuern.: I pay taxes. For this general statement you use zahlen. Bezahlen is more the act of paying itself. Hopefully you're not the one paying generally in the pub ;-)
The sentence "you're paying for our drinks" is different from "you'll be buying our drinks", though.
You are paying for our drinks = Sie bezahlen unsere Getränke.
Is the "for" necessary? Or is it also ok to say: "You are paying our drinks"?
You will be buying our drinks. = Sie werden unsere Getränke kaufen.
Is the "be" necessary in the second sentence?
The "for" is necessary here because that's the English version of "bezahlen" (which you could also, vielleicht, translate as finance or fund), and because you're not paying the drinks (you're paying the cashier, directly, or the owner of the bar, ...)
to buy = kaufen, to pay = bezahlen. "We are drinking and you are buying", as fas as I know means: "Wir trinken und du kaufst." Korrekt?
In connection with drinks in pubs, “Tom is buying” can mean “Tom is the one who will pay for our drinks”.
In general, though, buy is best translated as kaufen.
