- Forum >
- Topic: German >
- "Du bist die einzige, die Zei…
"Du bist die einzige, die Zeitungen liest."
Translation:You are the only one who reads newspapers.
35 Comments
Correct. The second ‘die’=“who” is a relative pronoun. When addressing a male, “You are the only one reading newspapers.” would be ‘Du bist der einzige, der Zeitungen liest.’ (see olimo's question); while “You are the only one reading the newspapers.” would be ‘Du bist der einzige, der die Zeitungen liest.’
458
If you think of it as "You are the only one reading newspapers" you can forget about a literal translation involving "who".
That said, while my suggestion seems like an accurate if not perfect translation, anyone know if it is acceptable to DL? I only thought of it after reading lyxiaof's question...
Thanks christian! For other people's information, the link has changed to http://www.dartmouth.edu/~german/Grammatik/WordOrder/relatives.html
German and English punctuation rules are different.
In German orthography, it is acceptable to separate independent clauses with a comma, whereas a semicolon is required in English. But ‘die Zeitungen liest’ can't be an independent clause because ‘die Zeitungen’ is plural, whereas ‘liest’ is singular, so it doesn't make any sense on its own.
Also, in German, a relative clause is always offset by a comma, whereas in English orthography, a comma is only used for nonrestrictive relative clauses.
Others are interpreting the second "die" as the relative pronoun (subject of the second clause), while your explanation interprets it as the article for Zeitungen. If you say "Du bist die einzige die die Zeitungen liest" then it is perfectly clear; however, with only one "die" it can be debated whether it is the article for Zeitungen or the relative pronoun.
I meant to respond to the statement above by AndreasWitnstein: "But ‘die Zeitungen liest’ can't be an independent clause because ‘die Zeitungen’ is plural, whereas ‘liest’ is singular, so it doesn't make any sense on its own." That explanation does not seem to apply where "die" is the relative pronoun (subject - nominative), "Zeitungen" a plural noun (object - accusative) and "liest" the verb form that goes with "die".