"In the beginning was the word."
Translation:Am Anfang war das Wort.
19 Comments
My dictionary says 'zu Beginn' means 'in the beginning' but that is marked wrong
You are right, "Zu Beginn war das Wort." should also be accepted .
But the bible quotation translates to "Am Anfang war das Wort." :-)
technically it is not wrong. But the sentence is a quotation from the bible that usually runs as given in the main solution.
In the very beginning, before the world existed, there was only the spoken word of god which brought everything into existence.
154
Ignoring that it is a bible quote, could 'auf' or 'in' be used instead of 'an'?
No. "in the beginning" is "am Anfang" in colloquial everyday speech as well.
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Well, I can't comment on the preposition, but there certainly shouldn't be a comma after "Anfang"—although I'm pretty sure Duo doesn't pick up on punctuation.
Indeed. The comma may be ok in English, but is definitely not in German.
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Yeah, I'd actually say I'm more confident using commas in German, than I am in English, because the rules for using commas are so fest im Deutschen.
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Im Anfang war das Wort, is how it is written in my Bibles (revisions from 1953, 1964 and 1984)
There exists an abundance of German bible translations. Many have "am", others "im". Looking at the years you gave I thinh you are referring to "Luther", one of the most well-known ones. I'm not sure about previous editions, but 1984 and 2017 definitely have "am".
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tks, yes i am referring to the Lutherbibel, and the 1984 revision i have showed im
