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- "Du bist die einzige, die Zei…
"Du bist die einzige, die Zeitungen liest."
Translation:You are the only one who reads newspapers.
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Am I right to conclude this is addressing a female person? For a male person, I would translate "You are the only one who reads newspapers" as "Du bist der einzige, der Zeitungen liest". Is that right?
Thanks for clarifying this. So "die einzige, die..." essentially translates to "the only one who..."
Du (You) bist (are) die (the, feminine) einzige (only one) die (who, feminine) Zeitungen (newspapers) liest (reads).
OR
Du (You) bist (are) der (the, masculine) einzige (only one) der (who, masculine) Zeitungen (newspapers) liest (reads).
Look down the thread, too, Christian gave a link there.
These types of sentences would be easier if they explained Grammar rules a bit. This one is just hit and miss at first if you don't understand the grammar rules it seems.
Seems like "You are the only one reading the newspapers" is also accepted, but is that correct? Would there be a different word order for both phrases? Thanks!
“You are the only one reading newspapers.” would also be correct, but “You are the only one reading the newspapers.” would be ‘Du bist die einzige, die die Zeitungen liest.’
Wow. Thanks! So the original "die" in "Du bist die einzige, DIE Zeitungen liest" refers to the "du" in the sentence? I'm a bit confused.
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.’
Just what I wrote, cus I thought I heard that. got error cus i missed the other 'die'
That is correct. There are a few ways this could be translated into English and your sentence is one of them. The word order in German is usually different from that in English, which is why word for word translation usually has disastrous results.
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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， so the＂die＂is not the article for ＂Zeitungen＂ but something like a pronoun？
Thanks christian! For other people's information, the link has changed to http://www.dartmouth.edu/~german/Grammatik/WordOrder/relatives.html
The ‘die’ at the beginning of the relative clause: ‘…, die Zeitungen liest’ = “… who [fem. sing.] reads newspapers”.
The comma there confused me really bad. My translation was: You are the only, the newspaper reads.
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.
That couldn't be more correct, now I feel stupid cause I didn't notice it was Zeitungen, not Zeitung, a key detail. Also, that was a good concise explanation. Vielen Dank good sir.
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.
No, it can only be a relative pronoun. If it were a definite article, the sentence would be ungrammatical. You can't drop relative pronouns. Never ever.
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".
Ah, so you're saying that "die Zeitungen liest" could be interpreted as "she reads newspapers"? That doesn't work because the word order would have to be SVO: "Die liest Zeitungen". Note that saying "die" instead of "sie" can seem a bit rude.
Your translation misses a subject. It would not be newspapers that does reading (quoting, announcing) because there is plural ( Zeitungen ) but singular in the verb. What more, this 'reading' would not be translated as lesen but as lauten which is more like 'to announce'.
