- Forum >
- Topic: German >
- "Duo buys a new plane every w…
"Duo buys a new plane every week."
Translation:Duo kauft jede Woche ein neues Flugzeug.
56 Comments
652
Would it still be impossible if we wanted to emphasise the "jede Woche" part? "He buys a new plane every week, can you imagine?", stuff like that? :)
292
If you want to emphasise an aspect, you bring it to the front in German: Jede Woche kauft Duo ein neues Flugzeug
In German, after the subject and the first verb, time usually comes first (TeKaMoLo = 1) Temporal, 2) Kausal, 3) Modal, 4)Lokal)
https://www.fluentu.com/blog/german/german-sentence-structure/
Thus: Duo kauft 1) jede Woche 2) aufgrund des Flugzeug-Verschleißes 3) mit der Kreditkarte 4) am Flughafen...ein neues Flugzeug.
Kind of silly example, but to demonstrate the preffered order of syntax. You can take any of them out and place it before the first verb:
Jede Woche kauft Duo aufrgrund des Flugzeugverschleißes mit der Kreditkarte am Flughafen ein neues Flugzeug.
652
Generally, in German, the object of the sentence (here - "ein neues Flugzeug") tends to come at the very end. Think of it as ending a story with the punchline - you don't get to hear what it is that Duo buys until the very end. ;) Also, any temporal clauses ("jede Woche") tend to go right after the verb, though that is a little more flexible. See also the comments above.
292
Genau. See my comment above referencing German syntax and word order (we learnt this order as "TeKaMoLo").
1449
Both "Wöchentlich kauft Duo ..." and "Alle Wochen kauft Duo ..." are being rejected. Are they both wrong?
Both "Wöchentlich kauft Duo ..." and "Alle Wochen kauft Duo ..." are being rejected. Are they both wrong?
alle Wochen is definitely wrong. "Duo buys a new plane all weeks" sounds wrong to me in English as well -- would you say that?
wöchentlich at the beginning of a sentence sounds very odd to me, at best. I would strongly want to move it to its natural position, after the verb. I would recommend that you do so as well.
1449
Thanks. And no, I would not say "all weeks" in English -- but I would not say "all two weeks" in English either, and I seem to recall "alle zwei Wochen" was the translation Duo gave for "every two weeks".
But that opens the question as to why it isn’t « eines. »
Indeed. Why do we not say einer Mann, eines Kind? No idea. We just don't.
But when we use those words as pronouns, then they do have an ending: Hier steht ein Mann und da steht noch einer. Hier steht ein Kind und da steht noch eins. (Here is one man and there is another one. Here is one child and there is another one.)
if it was a skirt he was buying it would be “...kauft einen Rock”?
Then it would be kauft einen neuen Rock.
einen ends in -n, the characteristic for masculine accusative, so the adjective takes a weak ending -- which happens to be -en for all cases except nominative singular. (Well, and feminine accusative and neuter accusative, because those always look like the correspondig nominative.)
The weak ending -e is only for nominative singular + fem.acc. + neut.acc.
All cases in the plural, always in genitive and dative, and for masc.acc. it's -en.
The questions you raise at the beginning of your last comment are not really applicable, because your examples are in the nominative. My point was simply that, so far as I know, “ein” when used in the accusative identifies its noun as neutral gender. But I take your general point, which is that the adjective preceding a neutral noun can only end in -e if the indefinite article governing it ends with -es.
1449
mizinamo explained why not (in answer to my asking the same question). It's apparently the last post before yours, if you sort the comments by date.
292
And what's correct in cases with numerals? Alle zwei Wochen vs jede zwei Wochen? Thank you!