"We have many planes."
Translation:Wir haben viele Flugzeuge.
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2464
Ich find's immer hilfreich, den ganzen Satz aufzuschreiben, den man reingetippt hat. Ansonsten kann man nicht feststellen, ob der Fehler woanders im Satz lag.
Wenn du den Satz „Wir haben eine Menge Flugzeuge“ als Antwort reingegeben hättest, würde ich sagen, dass da kein Fehler ist.
Aber falls du z.B. den Satz „Wir haben eine Menge Flugzeug“ versucht hättest, dann wäre da schon ein Fehler, ohne dass wir „eine Menge“ überhaupt betrachten würden.
- 1593
I don't understand why you received down votes...? You wrote something helpful and relevant. Do people down vote because they dont understand or disagree? (I expect down votes because this isn't on topic)
- 2464
Thank you for the kind comment.
Some people ask why their answer wasn't accepted and are disappointed if the response isn't "Your answer is correct, it just needs to be added by the team at Duo".
Some people ask a question in German and are annoyed when they receive an answer in German.
However, the truth is only the person/people who downvoted my comment can tell you exactly why they did it.
All we can do is guess.
I expect it is because many beginners (myself included) don't like to be reminded of just how much of a beginner they are :). Also, it is extra work opening a translation app/ website, and then you don't know how far you can trust it. However, when one does do it, it usually ends up being interesting. Z.B., I learnt from your answer that z.B. stands for e.g (for example). So danke :D
- 2464
"Vielen" does 'exist', it just isn't the right inflection here.
As there's no article here, we need the strong inflection; which for plural nouns in the accusative case turns "viel" into "viele".
Ok, so both "viel" and "Flugzeug" are supposed to have -e added in this instance? Flugzeug does not have one syllable, shouldn't it have some other extension?
Is it perhaps a case that it's a complex word (Flugzeug [Flug+ Zeug]), so in each word it is allowed to have one syllable so that the extension in plural would be -e? Hm. Hilfe mich! ^^
You seem to be under the impression that there are hard rules on how to form the plural of nouns in German: this is not the case. There are certain tendencies, sure (to name the most common: feminine nouns tend to take -(e)n, and most masculine and neuter nouns ending in ‘-er’ or ‘-el’ don't change), but otherwise plural formation is completely arbitrary, and you will have to learn the plural forms of nouns the same way you learn their gender. That said, the plural of compound nouns is always dictated by the last noun in the compound (in this case: the plural of ‘Zeug’ is ‘Zeuge’, so the plural of ‘Flugzeug’ is ‘Flugzeuge’, and the same goes for ‘Feuerzeug’ → ‘Feuerzeuge’, ‘Spielzeug’ → ‘Spielzeuge’ and so on).
It should be noted that Zeug is generally considered to be uncountable. I read that there ACTUALLY is a plural (very rare), but in 31 years I have never heard anyone use it on its own, to be honest :D
I think "Wir haben zahlreiche Flugzeuge" should also be excepted. right?
- 2464
I just tried that and reported it, but honestly, I don't think it's worth losing sleep over.
Yes, "zahlreich" is a synonym for "viele", but is what German speakers might call "etwas gehobener". It's a bit fancier than "viele" and almost akin to saying "We have myriad planes".
No, it isn't quite that "gehoben", but hopefully you can see now why I don't expect it to be accepted anytime soon.
I'm confused. I thought Zeugs was the plural for Zeug. So why would it not be Flugzeugs?
- 2464
No, "Zeugs" is the genitive singular of "Zeug", so you would see "Flugzeugs" appear in something like this:
Die Flügel des Flugzeugs.
The wings of the aeroplane.
The plural for "Zeug" is "Zeuge"*, and, correspondingly, the plural for "Flugzeug" is "Flugzeuge".
*Just a note that "Zeug" is an interesting word, that—although it has a plural form (which even gets used from time to time)—is often used in the singular like a plural noun; as a mass/uncountable noun. But this is an aside that's irrelevant to the point at hand, so I won't go into any detail here.
Also, it means "some, but not others" I think. E.g. Manche Hunde mögen Obst. Meaning some (but not all) dogs like fruit.
It's easy to make the mistake of thinking of "manche" as meaning "many". I wonder if they developed from the same historical word.
- 1680
- Viele is used for countable words (viele Freunde, viele Bücher)
- Viel for uncountable/mass nouns (viel Zucker, viel Spaß)
- vielen is Dative plural of "viele" https://www.grammar-monster.com/glossary/dative_case.htm