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- "That is none of my business."
"That is none of my business."
Translation:Das geht mich nichts an.
46 Comments
I really don't understand this one. I used the "hover over" words and nichts wasn't even one of the options and the word business isn't in the answer at all.
"none of one's business" is an idiom, which is here translated into an equivalent idiom in German, jemanden etwas/nichts angehen.
The hints don't reflect this idiomatic translation, though. Report it if you'd like.
645
I found out that one of the meanings of angehen is to concern. That makes the English translation "That does not concern me." Don't you hate separable verbs?
That's close to one of the accepted answers: Das ist nicht mein Bier. (The accepted answer has capitalised Bier, since it's a noun.)
It's an idiom - "not your beer" means "not your concern, not your business".
You (as a learner) cannot -- that list is not publicly visible anywhere.
It's part of the interface where course contributors work on the course, but is not available in any public part of the site.
Why the list is not available to the public is something you'd have to ask Duolingo HQ -- I don't know. I'm not even sure it was a conscious choice to "withhold" that information; just that they didn't think of a way to make it available in an accessible way.
- 645
I like that better than the official answer because it comes closer to making sense in English.
- 960
Suggested answer, word for word "That goes me not on."... Huh? Is there another way to say this that makes sense? Maybe a better English translation? If it has one of those separable verbs, "angeht" according to Google means "as for"... So, "That as for me not"? That's not good English either. I just need a better way to remember this because even though it's been coming up for a few days now I really had no idea at all when I got to it today. Any suggestions?
Suggested answer, word for word "That goes me not on."...
No, that is not correct. nichts means “nothing” and not “not”.
Be careful not to mix up nicht and nichts.
Huh? Is there another way to say this that makes sense? Maybe a better English translation?
“That is none of my business.”
Or perhaps “That does not concern me”.
If it has one of those separable verbs, "angeht" according to Google means "as for"...
Don’t trust Google. Especially not for individual phrases out of context.
was mich angeht... could mean “as for me” in the sense of “as for what concerns me” — but that doesn’t mean that you can translate angehen as “as for” in all situations.
Any suggestions?
Does it help to think of angehen as “concern”?
- 960
Yes it actually does. Thank you for the reply! The suggested words don't match up at all on this particular phrase, FYI. I also did mix up nicht and nichts, but on the other hand, why wouldn't nicht work in this sentence?
If I only use the app, how much do I miss out on? I've been studying for a year so far but I've mostly just used this app as well as two other main ones and a couple I'm on irregularly, but I've never seen any of them actually give reasons for the grammar and actually try to teach it instead of just making you figure it out on your own. I've actually tried looking for German grammar books, but haven't had quite the success I was really looking for.
why wouldn't nicht work in this sentence?
It just sounds wrong to me; it's not how we say it.
Can you say why it has to be "That is none of your business" and not "That is not of your business"?
If I only use the app, how much do I miss out on?
If you never read the tips and notes, you're missing out on quite a lot of grammar explanations. The tips and notes aren't available in the app for the German course, as far as I know.
I highly recommend that before you start a new unit, you open the website https://www.duolingo.com/ in a browser, click on the unit, and then on the lightbulb:
and then read the tips and notes for that unit.
The construction is totally different here. In "mir geht es gut" you need a dative object, but "angehen" takes up to two accusative objects.
That would be "That does not affect me" or "That does not concern me" which I think is not quite the same.
gehts is a contraction of geht es. So you will typically see it in sentences involving asking how someone is doing, asking after their health. Wie gehts? Gehts dir gut? = Wie geht es dir? Geht es dir gut? (How are you? Are you doing well?)
So gehts is not possible in this sentence.
This is a mixture of different phrases and thus not a correct German sentence. Besides, it is "Geschäft", not "gescheft".
I think you mean "weird". I'm not sure what you are referring to. The "main solution" "Das geht mich nichts an", however is definitely the best translation of "That's none of my business". Of course it's not a literal expression, but this must be so, because a literal translation is not what is used in the respective other language. The presented translations reflect exactly how it is expressed idiomatically, i.e. how people really say it and will understand it.
If you said "Das ist keins von meinen Geschäften" (literal translation), the effect will be that you'll be confronted with baffled, blank faces, because nobody would grasp what you want to say.
The same will happen, if you tried to say "That goes nothing at you" (clumsy attempt of a literal translation of the German sentence) in English.
why can't I say "das angeht mich nicht"
Because it's wrong.
1) angehen is a separable verb, so the separable prefix an has to come at the end
2) we say das geht mich nichts an (more or less literally: that concerns me nothing) rather than das geht mich nicht an (that does not concern me)
- 364
So, I google translated 'angehen' and it means 'concerns'. I assume the 'an' is a separable prefix meaning you only conjugate 'gehen' and the 'an' is left over and goes at the end of the sentence. Therefore the sentence means more like 'This concerns me not'
Is this right??
If you're translating literally, it's "That concerns me nothing" (nichts, not nicht)
Compare the English expression, which is "That is none of my business" rather than "That is not of my business".
Please help me understand...That goes me not one? Several of us have a question about this idiom.
This is not an idiom (at least not in German. The English "that's none of my business" could be considered one). "angehen" is a separable verb and means "to concern". "Das geht mich nichts an" literally means "That doesn't concern me".
Danke! The conjugation is coming to me slowly. I am trying to find tricks to get a handle on the grammatical differences between German and English. Best, WB
A possible translation of Angehen is concerns.
Das geht mich nichts an = That concerns me nothing
No, the best possible translation. This is exactly how one would express the same thought in German.
