- Forum >
- Topic: German >
- "I usually drink my coffee wi…
"I usually drink my coffee with a lot of milk and sugar."
Translation:Ich trinke meinen Kaffee normalerweise mit viel Milch und Zucker.
79 Comments
922
This is exactly the question that i wanted to ask -- I find that I'm constantly being marked wrong for using one vs. the other, but I don't understand the functional distinction.
243
From what I could gather from my hits and misses, it seems that gewöhnlich means "usually" in relation to habits people have (e.g. going to the park, jogging), while normalerweise means "normally" in relation to things or interactions between people and things (in this case, how you take your coffee).
486
I think it is similar to English. You would not say "I drink normally my coffee with milk and sugar" The adverb would come before the prepositional phrase, "I drink my coffee normally with milk and sugar" or, the adverb would come first, "Normally I drink my coffee with milk and sugar" .
Usually the adverb in German either starts the sentence, or comes after the verb. BUT when a prepositional phrase is included, the adverb goes before the prepositional phrase.
https://deutsch.lingolia.com/de/grammatik/adverbien (See last bullet under "Wo steht das Adverb im deutschen Satz."
So, I believe, 'Ich trinke normalerweise meinen Kaffee mit Milch und Zucker" is incorrect.
Most English speakers would modify the verb with the adverb before it: "I normally drink my coffee with milk and sugar." About 90% of the time we say it this way. About 8% of the time we'll say "Normally, I drink...." and less than 2% will say "I drink my coffee normally..." Or less than 2%. It's awkward.
1482
What defines the location of normalerweise in a sentence? Why is it wrong to put it in the beginning?
"It depends on whether or not you're speaking about something that can be counted.":
https://germanwithnicole.com/blog/deutsch-lernen/viel-oder-viele
The same with: "wenig"/"wenige"
6
The dictionary notes say the viel stays unchanged in the singular unless it follows an article/determiner, in which case it gets declined as usual. In the plural it is usually declined even when there is no article.
So I think it must be a special case, otherwise it should be declined like any other dative feminine adjective.
See my response to Peter_Gman:
"It depends on whether or not you're speaking about something that can be counted.":
https://germanwithnicole.com/blog/deutsch-lernen/viel-oder-viele
The same with: "wenig"/"wenige"
6
So you would say that it's declined for countable nouns, but not for uncountable nouns?
I don't think that can be the whole story because you have sentences like "woher kommt die viele Milch?" where milk is uncountable but it's 'viele' following the article.
331
Duo wants to make "usually = gewöhnlich" and "normally = normalerweise" synonyms, but they are not!
1124
"Gewöhnlich, ich trinke meinen Kaffee mit viel Milch und Zucker." was marked wrong. Anyone know why?
722
"Gewoenlich trinke Ich meinen Kaffee mit viel Milch und Zucker" was accepted 04-Jul-19. (Sorry, this keyboard has no umlauts)
722
The problem is with "trinke": You can have "Ich" or "Normalerweise" before "trinke," but not both.
It is a German oddity that, in most sentences, the first verb must be the second word in the sentence, even though participles and infinitives usually go to the end.
396
I was rejected with "Ich trinke meinen Kaffee gewöhnlich mit viele Milch und Zucker", but was accepted with "Ich trinke meinen Kaffee gewöhnlich mit viel Milch und Zucker". Apparently my mistake was with "viele". I thought I should have used "viele" because Milch is feminine. But then Zucker is masculine. So apparently to modify a group of nouns of different genders with one adjective, the adjective should be without any ending changes, i.e. in its "original" form. Is this a correct observation?
No, "It depends on whether or not you're speaking about something that can be counted.":
https://germanwithnicole.com/blog/deutsch-lernen/viel-oder-viele
The same with: "wenig"/"wenige"
498
"Gewöhlich trinke ich meinen Kaffee mit viel Milch und Zucker" is not accepted... why? Could you help me?
243
I think 'vielen' would be correct if it were a noun in plural form. It is different than two singular words being treated as a plural. Furthermore, I believe 'viel' does not have any declination because 'Milch und Zucker' is being treated as a whole particle, and not by the gender of each individual word.
No, it's because in this example, viel means "much" and not "many." "Much" in German (Viel) does not change form, but many (viele) does. You don't say "I drink my coffee with many milk and sugar. If you have a quantifiable noun that can have a plural (for instance, sugar cubes), that would use the word "many" and that would change form: Ich trinke meinen Kaffee mit viel Milch und vielen Zuckerwürfeln
270
i do not see why the word usually cannot come at the beginning of the sentence ie.Normalerweise trinke ich meinen Kaffee mit viel Milch und Zucker.
618
Usually = üblicherweise wird als falsch gewertet. Die Leute von Duolingo müssen noch viel lernen ...
For the people wondering why the answer is "viel" instead of "viele": In this example, viel means "much" and not "many." "Much" in German (Viel) does not change form, but many (viel, viele, vielen) does. You don't say "I drink my coffee with many milk and sugar." If you have a quantifiable noun that can have a plural (for instance, sugar cubes), that would use the word "many" and that would change form: "Ich trinke meinen Kaffee mit viel Milch und vielen Zuckerwürfeln." Notice how the feminine "Milch" STILL doesn't have "viele" in front of it?
726
Ich trinke mein Kaffee gewöhnlich mit viel Milch und Zucker. Why is meinen in the accusative case? Also, why does Duo constantly change around and mark you wrong on certain words, such as "normalerweise" and "gewohnlich". The sentence clearly says I usually....but when you enter gewohnlich it is wrong. Same with normalerweise. I have also seen this happen with Mensch and Person.
722
Specifically, because "Kaffee" is masculine, and masculine nouns must show accusative case. The other two genders do not show accusative case. Perhaps you thought "Kaffee" was a "das" word?