- Forum >
- Topic: German >
- "Dieses Kind bist du."
64 Comments
"Dieses Kind bist du" gives "This child is you", but shouldn't it be "Dieses Kind ist dich"?
No, dieses Kind is the predicate noun of the subject du which uses 2nd pers. sing. bist.
Can you develop your answer a little bit? What is a predicate noun? Thank you!
1) Would you say "Du bist dieses Kind" or "Dich ist dieses Kind"?
2) Change it to "This child is he". (Ignore the english word order.) Would you say "Dieses Kind ist ihm" or "Dieses kind ist er"? It should be "Dieses Kind ist er" or "Er ist dieses Kind".
Was all of this only to say that in the sentence "Dieses Kind bist du", the subject is "du", hence the verb being "bist", and the direct object of the verb is "Dieses Kind"?
I think I understand what you and Elias.M.A are saying. But in this case, why is the sentence backwards?
Because the emphasis is on the child. It's just another way of stating the sentence, allowing more flexibility in voice and writing style.
Imagine going through a photo album, and you don't recognize yourself in a group photo. Somebody comes by, and says, "this child [here] is you". You 'could' say "you are this child", but because the focus is on the child in the picture, it makes a bit more sense (at least to me) to say, "this child is you".
Can you think of any other life situation where this sentence makes sense? Cause duolingo could focus more on more usable phrases.. (:
Duolingo is unfortunately not meant to teach you the entirety of a language, especially not one that is useful to any particular individual. Instead, it is a guide.
Duolingo should not be used alone. One should read books, magazines, internet posts, in the target language, listen to music, podcasts, the news, and speak with other speakers of the target language.
This should be a disclaimer for everyone to read, before they even start. It would help a lot of learners to know this.
NikolaMaric: You might like the Lonely Planet brand pocket phrasebooks, if you've never heard of them. They're full of wicked useful phrases.
A friend told me it was like this: Masculine:Das .sg noun (That),Dieser .sg noun (This), Das .pl noun(Those), Diese(These) .pl noun Femenine: Das .sg noun(That), Diese .sg noun(This), Das .pl noun (Those), Diese (These) .pl noun Neuter: Das .sg noun (That), Dieses .sg noun (This), Das .pl noun (Those), Diese (These) .pl noun
I gave "This child is you" as my answer, and it was correct. But this phrase in English makes no sense to me.
I agree! I'm sure that sentence could be said in some context, but I am finding that it's really hard to make/hear sentences when the translation doesn't make sense.
I imagine it being said when looking back at pictures or videos of someone's childhood, or maybe comparing them to someone? These are the best guesses I have.
If it doesn't translate well to English in my head I find it hard to know what it says. I suppose the context to the sentence is someone showing you a picture saying "this child is you" but I dont understand how bist translates to is, when you over over bist and "is" is not one of the words
"You're this kid!" Is my translation wrong or they just don't have this as an option yet(4 weeks old)?
Dieses Kind bist du - 1. On either side of the verb sein we use the nominative case 2. One could very well say to a child, holding up a picture of that child, "Dieses Kind bist du." 3. HOWEVER: "bist" is the second person singular indikativ präsens form of sein. 4. Duolingo's translation here is incorrect. "This child is you" would be "Dieses Kind ist du." 5. Dieses Kind bist du = This child are you / You are this child.
Duo's translation is correct. English and German differ a little here. In English the subject can be either "this child" or "you". In German, "du" is the subject and it has to agree with the verb, "bist". I cannot see any other possibility.
I don't know if there is an explanation but I think the order in the sentence has nothing to do with it. (If I am wrong, please somebody say so.)
Imagine a parent showing an old class picture to their child, and pointing at one in the crowd indicating "This child is you".
I can think of lot of contexts in tragic novels where family members meet again after years and exchange their memories ...
Why is it "Dieses Kind bist du" and not "Dieses kind ist du"? As far as I can see, the state-of-being refers to "This child" and not "you".
Wouldn't "Kind" technically be the subject? In this sentence at least. You are talking to someone, but that doesn't mean "du" is the subject.
German is very flexible in its word order, meaning the subject, verb and object could be rearranged and still make sense.
I am a native english speaker and i find that this sentence makes perfect sense. Imagine looking at childhood photos and your parent points to a child and says, "that's you". To say that this phrase has no practical use is silly. Even if you don't think YOU will use it (or a sentence structured similarly), that is not to say you won't come across it at all.
why isn't "you are this kid" accepted? I thought that "Dieses Kind bist du." and "Du bist dieses Kind." have the same meaning
No. The sentence would be "This child is you." This is because the state-of-being verb, in this case "is," refers back to "the child," not forward to "you." You would not say, "This child are (fill in the adjective)." Alles klar, Herr Kommissar? If not, I'll be glad to explain more fully.
1583
you all have good points and i finally had to figure out that a lot of this is a matter of translation; in german, as well as french and probably all languages there is often no direct translation and we must interpret the english meaning for ourselves. best example; book titles. choose a favorite book and look at the title translations in german and in another language; you learn right away that some books may look like they are even about different subjects if based on translation to english alone.
Yes, wrong.
You could say "You are this child", but if you start with "this child", "this child" is the subject of the sentence and therefore it needs to be "is", not "are".
This is different in German. Because of having cases, German often has more flexibility in word order. The "du" can still remain the subject of the sentence, even if placed at the end.
Why dont we use das again like before? What's the difference between das, dieses etc?
When used attributively (i.e. in front of a noun) "das" means "the" (or sometimes "that") and "dieses" means "this". So they are not exchangeable.
When standing alone, as in "this is/that is/these are/those are" you usually use "das" for all of them.
This one got me. The only situation I can think of where this might be used in English is if somebody showed a photograph of, say a school class, pointed to a child and said to another person "this child is you".
That's exactly the type of situation which is associated with the German sentence. Could be a story instead of a picture, too.
This child is you. was the given answer.... In English, technically the answer should be 'This child is yours?" Q: Dieses Kind bist du should be rephrased as Dieses Kind warst du? [PAST TENSE] (Translated to "You were this child?") Because in English they do not say "This child is you." They ask someone "This child is Yours?"
"This child is you", is not something said in English. It should be "this child is YOURS."
The way I interpret it, I imagine someone showing a young child a photo of them and telling the child that is them in the photo. Who knows?
"This child is yours" would be "Dieses Kind ist deins". That would be a different sentence.
It's true that the verb and the subject are swapped. However, there is no question mark at the end of the sentence, so it cannot be a question. I think the position of the words is more stylistic. As Elias.M.A wrote above, this allows to put emphasis on "Dieses Kind" rather than on "Du".
- 1583
this doesn't make any sense. is the speaker talking about a picture of the 'you' to whom he is speaking?
du bist - you are, bist du - are you. Surely? And if not, how about Duolingo specifying an appropriate use, rather than just letting the user fail without actually teaching anything in the first place - again. Gets wearing
You cannot always translate word by word. Literally "bist du" is indeed "are you", but you don't say so in English in the given context.
- 155
This is a weird sentence, at least in English and I would never use it in speach. "This child is yours" is a sentence i would actually use in real life.
"This child is yours" has a completely different meaning.
Imagine you are showing an old photo to your younger brother. The photo shows him at a very young age. You point at the little boy in the picture and say "This child is you".
