"We are having dinner along the water."
Translation:Wir haben Abendessen am Wasser.
18 Comments
Why is it okay to say "Wir haben Abendessen" to say you are eating dinner but not "Wir haben Brot" to say you are eating bread?
I think because "Wir haben Abendessen" doesn't mean we are eating dinner, it means we are having dinner.
"Wir haben Brot" means "we have bread." I don't think it is an idiomatic expression.
why is "wir haben abendessen entlang das wasser" incorrect? isn't entlang suppose to trigger accusative?
17
entlang is only used when there is movement. So you could use entlang to say "we are walking along the water" (wir gehen am Wasser entlang)
but since eating lunch does not involve movement, you would use the preposition "an" . so you would translate "we are having dinner along the water" as "wir haben Abendessen am Wasser" (am = an + dem)
IMO, a clearer translation of this preposition is to say "we are having dinner ON the water"
- 286
Thank you for explaining entlang, however to me, having dinner 'on' the water suggests one is dining on a boat. Having dinner 'by' the water suggests eating on the riverbank or beach. I'm not sure which alternative 'along' means.
- 17
i believe youre right, 'by' would definitely be a better translation for 'an' ! I'm not 100% sure, but i think 'along' could mean both depending on the context.
- 286
There maybe something else wrong with it, but I know that entlang normally goes at the end of the sentence. But I wrote something similar and it rejected it too.
- 846
'We are having dinner along the water,' is the sort of eenglish 'argot' spoken by groups of 'foreign' students on arrival in the UK to study. It's a fine attempt, understandable and in truth, far better than my command of any foreign language but really, it's unintended comedy and simply not English. Though it's not very informative, 'We are having dinner beside (or, alongside) the water,' is good English.
- 94
Why is "Wir essen am wasser zu abend" not accepted ? I thought that "Wir essen zu abend" was the expression to say "We are having dinner".
